


smells like a forest in here

by pyralstrife



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, and very very very oblivious keith, anyway i have no idea how to write romance so bear with me, ill try my best to stick to accurate characterizations but im also racing against a word count so :0, pining lance, the slowest fucking burn, this might seem a bit ooc but its my first time writing fic lMAO, this was supposed to be my nanowrimo thing but, what happened to that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:19:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8440051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyralstrife/pseuds/pyralstrife
Summary: a Classic pining lance/oblivious keith fic, originally written for my nanowrimo** alternating povs! all odd chapters will be keith's perspective and all even chapters lance's :0** 1/3/17: i probably won't be updating for a while! i need to focus on studying for midterms, sorry!! regular updates should resume in february; i'll try to get another chapter or two out this month** 3/2/17: i probably won't be updating this fic any longer :( i've run out of ideas for it, i'm really sorry if you wanted more





	1. Chapter 1

Keith was jogging to the kitchen for a quick goo snack when he heard them talking about him.

"Uh huh. Sure. Sounds suspiciously like a-" Hunk's words were muffled by a yelp.

 _Like a what?_ Keith thought, his steps slowing.

"No! Hunk, it's not like that. He just gets on my nerves all the damn time. Look..." Lance protested indignantly.

Keith stopped, his boots scuffing against the floor as he slid to a halt. He stood completely still, hoping that neither of them heard his not-very-secretive footsteps. If anyone asked, he was definitely _not_ eavesdropping. It was mere coincidence that he was leaning just outside the entrance to the kitchen with his back to the wall, looking very much like he was trying to listen in on the conversation without getting caught.

"-like, it's completely uncalled for, of course I'm just joking aroun..." His voice trailed off. "You hear that?" Lance muttered. An affirmative grunt came from somewhere else in the room, sounding as if the noise was being made behind a mouthful of goo. It probably wasn't inaccurate.

Keith bolted down the hallway in the opposite direction, suddenly not feeling so hungry after all. He turned the corner and dashed into the nearest room just as Hunk stepped out and peeked around. "Hm. Doesn't seem like anyone was here, Lance. You sure it isn't the castle malfunctioning again?"

"Better not be..."

The conversation trailed off as Keith began walking back to the library, after checking that the coast was clear. He furrowed his brows in confusion. _What were they talking about anyway?_ The two of them seemed to be acting secretive, since Lance stopped once he heard Keith approaching.  _And what was that stuff about sounding suspiciously like a...whatever._ The conversation was definitely about Keith though, and it probably wasn't positive considering Lance described him as "getting on my nerves all the damn time." He frowned.  _I thought we were finally getting along._

Shrugging, the red paladin pushed open the doors to the library, plopping down in the comfortable chair he was reading in before and picking up the thick novel on the table. As he scanned the lines for where he left off, a voice caused him to jump.

"Hey, didn't you say you were gonna get a snack? What happened to that?" Pidge asked. "I wanted some."

"Oh, uh...I got distracted." He replied elegantly. His mind raced as he tried to come up with a good excuse as to why he just walked to the kitchen and back for no apparent reason. Nothing came up. "Sorry?"

Pidge only raised her eyebrows in disbelief before returning to the project she was working on, flipping through an Altean encyclopedia that was nearly half her size. Keith was glad she didn't push the subject. How else would he explain why he was...looking out for his teammates by eavesdropping on their conversation about him?

 _Right. Because that's_ totally _what it is._

 

_\----✄----_

When Keith entered the dining room a few hours later, still a bit sweaty from the training room even after wiping down, the first thing he saw was Lance staring at him. Keith took his usual spot next to his rival awkwardly and asked, "What are you staring at? Do I have something on my face?"

Lance sputtered, his gaze snapping down to the bowl of goo in front of them. "N-no! There's - I wasn't staring!" He began shoveling spoonful after spoonful of the bright green substance down his throat. Through a mouthful of goo, he couldn't help but make a jab at Keith. "Why would I wanna stare at your sweaty face anyway?"

Hunk, who was sitting to Lance's left, elbowed him gently in the ribs. The tips of Lance's ears turned red as he replied with a loud "shh," but only accidentally spat goo on the table in the process.

"Gross, Lance," Pidge said with a look of disgust on her face.

"Aw, c'mon! That wasn't even on purpose this time!"

The atmosphere in the room seemed to bounce back to what it was originally, and Keith let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. At least Lance wasn't staring at him weirdly now, though he still didn't understand his and Hunk's strange exchange. Keith rubbed his face with a napkin just in case there really  _was_ something on his face, and Lance was just playing a rude prank on him by not telling him so. Or maybe it was some kind of prank in a prank: stare at Keith and deny staring to make him think there was something on his face, when there really wasn't anything at all.  _Or,_ Keith thought.  _Maybe I'm just overthinking this._

He shoveled a spoonful of the space goo into his mouth, trying to swallow the strange consistency of the food. It felt somewhat solid but watery at the same time, as if he was eating the slime off the shelves of a science museum gift shop. He preferred Hunk's exotic vegetables that they gathered from various planets, but the team was trying to save their stock of space veggies until they could find a new place to replenish them. According to Coran, there weren't any planets with those resources in the vicinity of the spacecraft. For the last few days, they only had this for meals instead of the usual combination. Keith was jostled out of his food contemplation by a glop of food goo slamming into the side of his head, sliding down his face unceremoniously. He turned in surprise, expression souring instantly when he saw Lance's wide grin, the plastic spoon he'd used to fling it still vibrating from firing the projectile.

"Oh, it's on!" Keith shouted as he dug his own spoon into his bowl, using the momentum to hurl an amorphous blob that splattered in Lance's face. The entire dining room erupted into a food fight, the paladins splitting into groups of two naturally: Keith blocked a particularly large splatter of goo for Pidge, Shiro paired with Allura to form an unstoppable flinging duo, and Lance darted around nimbly while Hunk gobbled up the flying food with ease.

Pidge shouted, "Cover for me!" as she darted behind a chair, taking a bowl, three sporks, and a roll of duct tape that seemed to appear out of nowhere with her. Keith grabbed a nearby plate and lobbed its contents towards Shiro and Allura, using the same plate to block a shot from Lance and Hunk. In the minute or so that the food fight had been going on, Pidge managed to construct a crude slingshot from her limited supplies. "Where did you...?" Keith trailed off, pointing towards the tape as he ducked from a blob heading for Allura. The Altean princess didn't look as elegant as usual with slime dripping into her silver hair, but the glint in her eyes was absolutely murderous.

"Always keep a roll in my pockets. Crouch!" Keith dropped down next to her quickly, dodging a plate of slime that would've surpassed the speed limit on most highways. The globule slammed into Hunk's arm as he reached up to block it, and Keith was glad it wasn't his own face that caught the impact.

"What's our plan?" Keith called over the commotion. The other two groups hadn't noticed their disappearance yet, but it wouldn't be long until it happened.

"We can't get Hunk and Lance without taking down Lance first, but it's nearly impossible to get past Hunk. Shiro and Allura are a pretty intense duo, but a well-aimed projectile can take his arm out of the equation for a little while at least. How's your aim?"

Keith sucked in a breath. "I'm not the marksman of our team for a reason."

"Alright. We'll make do with what we have, just lemme run a few calculations..."

Keith nodded, peeking up over the chair on the lookout for anyone who might be sneaking up on Pidge while they were devising their plan. Shiro was occupied with slicing the blobs in two as they whirled through the air, a concentrated look on his face. Allura seemed equally as concentrated next to him, scooping up handfuls of the substance and adding to the chaos in the air. Hunk was a human shield all by himself, fending off both of the other two alone. Which left Lance -- where was  _he_?

His brain made the connection too late, and he whirled around to a faceful of green substance. For the second time in the last few minutes, the food goo slid down his face uncomfortably.

"Gotcha!" Lance laughed, pumping his arm in his small victory. Keith's face twisted into a grin as he saw Pidge pulling back the contraption behind him. For an instant, Lance's eyebrows shot up in confusion and he opened his mouth to say something before Pidge's carefully calculated goo fling smacked into the side of his face. The lanky boy lost his balance and slipped, shrieking, on one of the many goo piles lying on the floor. Instinct built on hours upon hours of "mandatory team bonding" exercises led Keith to dart forward, catching him in his arms before his head smacked the ground.

"AAAaaaaah...ah." Lance stammered. He paused, eyes darting to meet Keith's for a long moment. Keith stared right back. If they were going to have a staring contest in this incredibly awkward position, Keith wasn't going to back down. He noticed a tinge of red creeping up Lance's neck, up his neck to his ears and cheeks and-

The boy yelped a second later and Keith jumped back from surprise, dropping Lance in the process. "Whoops," he deadpanned, his voice coming out a lot more sarcastic than he felt.  _Oops._

"Jeez, Keith," Lance rubbed his back, glaring up at him from the ground. "Couldn't you have dropped me a little lighter?" Keith suddenly realized how much...quieter the room had gotten. The food fight had suddenly stopped and Pidge was reaching out a hand, helping Lance up.

"Sorry. You alright?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I didn't mean to drop you."

"Sure you didn't." Lance grumbled, wiping goo and imaginary dust off his jacket sleeves.  _What happened to him? I didn't even do anything!_

Coran burst into the room, his mustache quivering like a creature of its own when he saw the mess. "What happened here? I was gone for a few ticks and...what did you do to my food?"

None of the paladins responded, but Allura managed a weak grin. "Food fight?"


	2. Chapter 2

Lance lied awake, staring at the ceiling of his room. He didn't need to glance at the ticker next to him to know that it was way past midnight (or whatever midnight was equivalent to when they were floating through space), and he knew from experience that being late for Allura's team bonding exercises was not something he wanted to do again. Rolling around in his bland bedsheets, Lance wondered where he went wrong. The blue paladin squinted his eyes shut, trying to block out the endless stream of nonsensical thoughts rushing through his brain at a hundred miles a second.  _Think of warm, cozy things. Stuff that'll help you sleep. Like cold winters spent in front of the heater in a bundle of blankets at home, staring out the window, or drinking noodle soup with Hunk in our dorm back in the Garrison (man, that felt like forever ago), and how comfortable Keith's arms fel_ -

Lance stopped himself before that train of thought could get any closer to the imaginary station.  _Nope. Not going there._  He groaned out loud, burying his face in his hands. Hunk was right - he had it pretty bad. He thought of their conversation earlier today in the kitchen and the strange noise he heard. Who could it be? It probably wasn't Shiro - he would've already confronted Lance if he heard the conversation. Allura and Coran were working on a mechanical issue in the lower decks of the spacecraft during the time and for many hours after, so it couldn't have been either of them. That left Pidge and Keith.

Lance gulped.  _Please, please don't be Pidge. She doesn't need more blackmail material for me. And...Keith? Holy shit, what if it actually was Keith? How much did he hear?_

He suddenly really, really hoped that it was just the castle malfunctioning again.

 

_\----✄----_

 

 Sometime during the early hours of the morning, Lance finally drifted off to sleep after tossing and turning for what felt like eternity. He awoke the next morning feeling the worst he had ever been since joining Team Voltron. It didn't help that the castle's screaming alarms were what woke him up, or that he could feel a killer headache blooming at the base of his skull. Lost in his internal turmoil yesterday, he hadn't been able to go through his usual beauty routine and probably looked like a complete mess right now. There was no time for anything trivial like that now. Dragging himself out of bed and into his paladin armor that he had discarded carelessly on the floor the day before, he willed his headache to fade before they started fighting.  _I hope it's a drill. It's probably a drill, right? Actually, considering my luck lately, Zarkon himself probably took a day off just to make mine more miserable._  Lance wandered down the hall, trying to keep himself from yawning or slowing down as he ran the opposite way, then doubled back when he realized so.

Reaching the control room last, the blue paladin tried to slide into place inconspicuously. However, that didn't work out nearly as well as he hoped it would, considering the fact that there were only six other people in the room and that Allura had her eyes on him the whole time.

"Lance."

He looked up, a frown tugging at his lips. He wasn't  _that_ late, right? He did kinda space out on the way here, but there was no way he could've been any more than a few ticks or so later than the rest of the paladins.

"We've been waiting for you for the last twenty minutes. Where were you?"

 _Ah. That explains a lot._ Lance scratched the back of his neck, looking away. "Sorry. I...er, lost track of time?"

"Lost track of time? Lance, it is your responsibility as a paladin of Voltron to pay attention to things like this. You should be glad that this was just a drill - what if it had been a real crisis?" Allura lectured sternly. She looked up and down his disheveled self and her expression softened a little. "Don't let it happen again." Addressing the rest of the group, she said, "Look alive, paladins! Coran and I discovered a new exercise to improve your reaction times when we were on the lower decks yesterday. We still need to test its compatibility with the castle's current systems, so get into your lions. You are dismissed."

They ran down the glowing hallways to the hangar, chatting between themselves. Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk were walking ahead, leaving Keith and Lance to stroll behind them.  _I wonder what the reaction sim is like? I hope it isn't that difficult. I don't think I'm really in the state to deal with anything too difficult rig-_

"What happened to you?" Keith asked, cutting off his train of thought.

"What?" Lance jumped.  _Huh? What does he mean, what happened to me? Can he sense my headache or something?_

"I asked, what happened to you? You look more...uh, disheveled than usual."

Lance pouted, hands reaching up to try to fix his hair."Than usual? C'mon, Keith, give me some credit. Not everyone can roll out of bed looking like you."  _Fuck. That's not what I meant to say._

Keith blinked for a few seconds, as if registering the offhanded compliment. If Lance was paying close attention (which he definitely wasn't), he would've noticed the slight tinge of pink in his cheeks. "That's not what I meant but, uh, thanks? Seriously, did something happen?"

"I just didn't sleep well last night. If you're worried about it impacting our team, it's not that big of a deal." Lance shrugged, scuffing the tips of his boots against the floor as he tried to walk ahead of Keith.  _Wouldn't_ he _like to know that he was the reason why._

However, Keith didn't seem to take the hint, speeding up into a jog just to catch up with him. He reached up a hand to Lance's shoulder. "Why do you always have to assume shit like that? We're friends, Lance. I'm just worried for you."

Lance exhaled slowly, trying to dispel the pounding migraine. He pretended to act aloof, nudging Keith's hand off. "It's fine. I can handle myself, I don't need you to worry about me, alright?" 

The warmth on his shoulder disappeared as Keith's arm dropped, but the worried look on his face didn't. His eyebrows were drawn up, mouth curving slightly at the edges to a small frown. Lance groaned internally.  _Why does he have to be so cute and look at me like that? It makes it harder to let go of this...stupid crush. Or whatever it is._  He pushed away his thoughts, jogging ahead to the small cruiser that would take him to Blue instead. The two paladins parted paths there, but Lance couldn't help but feel a little glad that Keith was worried about him. It was a little endearing, even if it was only out of friendly concern.

 _Right. Completely platonic, 100% friendly concern. How about you think about Keith's dumb face later and focus on Allura's training for now?_ he thought as he slid into Blue's cockpit, gripping onto the familiar controls around him. The screens in front of him lit up in his presence, basking the room in a warm blue light. In his head, his lion hummed to life, feeding information and emotions into Lance's brain. Energy surged through him as the connection with his lion strengthened. The headache cleared up as he flew practice loops around the castle, waiting for the rest of his teammates to arrive.

Keith's voice suddenly spoke in his ear. "Hey Lance, wanna race?"

Lance grinned.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the kind comments!! my tumblr is at [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/) if you wanna talk :0


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fixed up chapter 2 a little to make it more coherent so!! be sure to check that out ☛☛
> 
> general plot hasn't changed tho

Keith knew there was something off about Lance the moment he walked into the control room earlier today. First, the blue paladin was completely silent - no shitty puns, bad pick-up lines, or even a "good morning" to anyone. Second, his hair was an absolute mess and there were deep bags underneath his eyes. The normal Lance would never pass up his beauty sleep, unlike Pidge who ran on caffeine and sarcasm alone, or Keith who never really slept well anyway. There was also a lack of shine to his skin that meant that he didn't even use a face mask the day before. His mind wandered to that one time Lance had tried to convince him to use some of his beauty products. "At least the face mask, Keith! That's as  _basic_ as self-care gets."

So much for basic. He had never really paid attention to these things before, but they had become such routine things for Lance that it felt extra strange when they weren't there.

Not wanting to interrupt Allura during her little spiel, Keith waited until the paladins began walking to ask Lance what was up. Instead of getting an actual answer like Keith hoped, he had only brushed him off.  _Was I being too annoying? I'm just worried about him._  Keith was definitely not the best person to consult on social cues, but friends were supposed to care about each other, right? He hoped he wasn't coming on too strong - no matter how assholish they were to each other, Keith liked having Lance as a friend.

Lance had jogged ahead to his speeder without another word and Keith didn't bother chasing after him. If he did, that would just be weird, right? He and Lance weren't as close as Lance was to Hunk, and considering Keith didn't even know the other boy existed until a few months ago just further proved that he should just let it slide. The others, or at least Shiro, had caught on though. Keith earned himself a confused glance after Shiro had seen him staring after Lance's retreating form.

The red paladin rid his thoughts of Lance. He had to be focused on the training exercise and pointless wondering wouldn't do him any good. His cruiser dropped him in the private hangar where Red was located. Each lion got their own space in the castle where their quintessence could be recharged when they weren't on missions, large open places for them to lie while dormant. The place was extremely spacious, As Keith approached, the particle barrier surrounding Red faded. The red lion purred in his mind, and Keith grinned.  _You ready, buddy?_

The lion roared in reply, crouching to let him climb on. Hands gripping the familiar controls, he did a quick systems check before pulling the throttle, the rush of adrenaline from flying pumping through his veins as he shot out of the hangar. He spotted Blue doing laps around the spires of the castle, Green sitting at attention on the bridge below. Keith tapped the motion sensor comm on his helmet and asked, "Hey, Lance, wanna race?"

Blue suddenly pulled up and flew to the spot next to him. In his helmet, Lance's voice shouted, "First one to that cliff wins!"

Keith smiled to himself. Lance seemed to be back to his regular self. He allowed the blue paladin to get a few hundred meters head start before accelerating, Red shooting forward like a comet. Within seconds, he had surpassed Lance, looping through Arus' strange rock formations and dipping in and out of the trees.

"Keith! It's not fair that your lion is faster than mine!"

Keith could almost hear the pout in his voice, but he only replied with a laugh. "Guess you and Blue just need a little more bonding time."

"Aw, come on! Blue and I are  _way_ closer than you and Red are."

Keith grinned. It was so easy to rile him up, all in good fun. "Oh? Prove it."

"Prove it? I'll prove it to y-"

"Lance and Keith, get back to the bridge. Everyone's here, we'll be starting the exercise soon," Shiro interrupted.

"Aww, Shiro! We're almost there, can't we just finish this race?" Lance pleaded.

Shiro sighed exasperatedly. "Lance."

"Okay, okay..." he resigned, turning around and boosting back to the castle.

Keith followed closely behind him, only a little bit disappointed that their race was cut short.  _Paladin duty, blah blah._ He'd heard it a thousand times before. Red grumbled in his mind, reprimanding him for the thought.  _Sorry._

The two slowed as they approached the bridge and Keith dropped Red down slowly, executing a textbook landing with ease. Lance touched down behind him, not as cleanly but better than when he first started flying. Keith smiled, glad to see that his friend had improved. "Not bad, Lance."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" 

"Your landing. It's gotten better."  _Wait, did I say that out loud? Why did I point that out oh my god -_

"Oh. You've been paying attention?" Lance's voice sounded surprised.

Keith made up something on the spot. "Well, only an idiot wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the time you crash-landed Blue into the castle and now." 

"I thought we agreed to never bring that up ever again!"

"Alright, paladins. Keith, Lance, settle down. Coran and I are setting up the device. There will be two separate sessions - one to test your individual reactions, and one to test how you work as a team. Be on guard, and good luck!" Allura spoke.

"You'll need it!" Coran added cheerfully.

_Oh boy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

Lance gripped Blue's controls tightly, waiting for the rock column to appear in his limited helmet vision. Allura's device modified the training helmets they had used in the lion bonding exercise. It blinded both lion and pilot until they reached 100 meters of an object and it was up to the pilot to dodge it within that time frame. "I'll set it on the easiest level so you guys can get used to it," Coran had told them. Easiest? Lance had trouble believing that. The original paladins had to be like, superaliens or something, right? They were instructed to fly close to the ground through a rocky desert on Arus, which the princess considered "simple enough." The desert spread out a few hundred miles in every direction but there was a specific structure that marked the end of their course. From the glimpse he got before the device was activated, Lance could only see golden sands, the scorching sun, and sparse vegetation here and there. And of course, the giant rocks.

A rocky spire suddenly appeared in his vision and Lance struggled to swerve to the right before he crashed into it. He managed to avoid colliding head-on, but the structure clipped Blue's shoulder and sent them spiraling through the landscape. His modified helmet kept blinking on and off as he jerked the controls left and right to avoid crashing. He could feel the pounding headache from before coming back. Blue urged him to pull up, but Lance only shook his head in reply. He was fine.

Sweat trickled down his back and he could feel his hands shaking from all the close calls.  _Where's the next one? Too much time has passed._ He took a hand off one joystick to readjust his helmet, which was slightly tilted from the wild ride. In the split second that his hand was off the controls, a wide rock cliff appeared in his view.  _Shit._ The blue paladin slammed the brakes, but it was too late to pull up or move out of the way. Blue crashed into the rock face and Lance felt like his bones were rattling inside his body as he was nearly launched out of his seat from the impact. He slammed his shoulder against the pilot's chair, head snapping back against the headrest on the seat. Groaning, he moved his hurt arm tentatively. Pain shot through it like a knife in his skin and his headache only grew more intense.

"I'm down," he spoke into his communicator as Blue shook herself free from the rocks and descended slowly. She seemed alright, suffering no damage that couldn't be fixed with a quick repair job once they got back to the hangar. Lance, however, definitely needed to spend time in the healing pods. His busted shoulder hurt so,  _so_ much.

Trying his best not to put pressure on it, the blue paladin stumbled out of his lion and sat against her side. Hunk and Pidge had already pulled up earlier and Lance could see them a little bit off if he squinted. He waved to them from afar, but they weren't looking in his direction.

"You alright, Lance?" Hunk asked. "Did you crash?"

"Yeah," he replied. "My shoulder hurts like hell. What about you guys?"

"I hit something before that set off Green's cloaking system and had to pull up. I'll need to repair it. Actually, Hunk was talking with me about helping me with that later," Pidge said. "Where did you land, Lance?"

"Look to your, uh, left? Wait. No, right. I'm waving at you guys."

In the distance, he saw two small dots, the taller one who waved back at him. Lance looked up at the sky with a hand over his eyes where Keith and Shiro were still going at it. _Nevermind_ , Lance thought as Shiro swerved out of control way off to the west, unable to squeeze through two rocks due to the size of his lion.  _Just Keith now._ Lance could only see a streak of red in the sky.  _Wait. Is he going faster? Blue, let me up._ The lion bent her head so Lance could walk up without hurting his arm further, and lifted so he could get a better view.

 _What the hell is he doing? Jesus christ, he's actually accelerating._  He watched in awe and maybe a little bit of jealousy as Red and Keith looped through the structures easily, as if they weren't even blinded. Maybe Keith was a superalien paladin too. "Holy shit," he muttered as he watched Red swerve so close around a rock that sparks flew into the air at impact. There was only a little bit more desert to get through, but the remaining section was easily the most dangerous of them all. Jagged rocks jutted out of the ground at seemingly random places. At this speed, there was no way Keith would get through it without crashing.

"Keith, slow down!" Shiro warned, but it was a little too late. Lance could only watch as Red zigzagged around the rocks protruding from the ground like fingers, waiting for Keith to fuck up and smash into them. He winced as it finally happened - one of the gaps was simply too small for them to weave through and Red collided with the structure. Pieces of rock exploded around them and the lion reversed, pushing off it before landing in a poof of sand.

"I'm down," Keith huffed. "That's everyone, right?"

"Yes," Allura confirmed from the castle. "Good job, everyone! For your first time, that wasn't bad. We'll be doing this more often in the future so you guys can improve. Who here is injured and can't fly back?"

"I am," Lance said.

"I've got a few bruises but nothing I can't handle. Anyone else?" Shiro reported. Nobody else spoke up.

"Lance, set Blue on autopilot back to the castle. You can ride back with Keith, since he landed closest to you. All of you, come to the medical center as soon as possible." Allura's voice disconnected from the communicator.

Lance slid down Blue's side, stumbling to a stop on the ground.  _Go back to the castle, Blue. I'll check up on you later, alright?_ The lion nodded in affirmation, boosters leaving blue streaks behind her as she shot off in the castle's direction. Not much later, Keith's lion touched down near him.

"I'm fine," Lance replied, rubbing the back of his neck. His face felt like it was burning as Keith stepped down, wrapping an arm around his waist to help him onto the ship. "Thanks." _Oh boy, I really hope I don’t smell bad right now. Do these suits have deodorant? I should check if Blue comes with deodorant._

“Keith,” Lance wondered. “D’you think our lions have deodorant? Seriou--hey! What are you laughing at? It was a serious question.”

“Your arm is about to fall off and all you can think about is deodorant?”

“It’s not about to fall off! It just hurts a little. Okay, maybe a lot.”

“Want me to kiss it better?” Keith smirked.

Lance’s face flushed. “W-what?!”

“I’m kidding! You didn’t think I was serious, right?”

Lance was aware of the fact that he was staring, aware of the fact that there was suddenly a very awkward silence between the two. “N...o...” he dragged out slowly. He bit his bottom lip nervously. _Great. Good fucking job, Lance, you just made the rest of the ride awkward as hell._

“So,” Keith said after a long silence. “Where are you gonna sit?”

There wasn’t really anywhere to sit besides the pilot’s seat, which definitely didn’t have enough space for two people. _Nope. You aren’t thinking about the alternative right now._

“Wait here for a sec.” Keith ducked into Red’s storage sector. He returned with an emergency blanket. “Here.”

Lance's eyebrows knit in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“Putting you in this, dumbass. What else would I be doing?”

“Can’t I just like, stand or something? I don’t need a blanket. It’s not like I’m dying of a cold or whatever.”

“And what, wreck your shoulder some more if you fall? No offense, but I don’t want to carry you to the healing pods again.” Keith bent to drape the blanket around him, cushioning his damaged shoulder.

“You’re never gonna let me live that down, right?”

“Nope.” Keith stood, buckling himself into the pilot’s seat. “Enjoy the ride.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> ★  
> i'm interested in what you guys think of this so far :0


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise i'll get to the fluff eventually  
> we need Buildup

After helping Lance into the healing pods, Keith found himself with a lot of time on his hands. He stopped by the training deck, but Shiro was occupied with the Gladiator and Keith didn’t feel like stopping him. There were plenty of other things to do, right? Like…

 _Huh. I could always go and explore the castle with Pidge, I guess._ He wandered the halls, checking her room and then the library before remembering that she was fixing her lion in the hangars. Keith poked his head into the room, where Pidge and Hunk were standing around Green.

“Oh hey, Keith,” Hunk said, waving to him. “Come on in! Pidge and I are trying to figure out what went wrong with Green’s cloaking system. You wanna take a look at this?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll check underneath again. The plating looked a bit weird before. Flashlight?” Pidge asked, sliding underneath the lion on a metal board, her hand outstretched for the flashlight. Keith picked up one on the ground and handed it to her.

“Wrench.”

Keith and Hunk both reached for the wrench from the toolbox on the floor. Half of the things inside had been taken out, scattered on the ground. Keith sat down hesitantly, careful to sweep aside any loose screws or bolts.

“Blue wire and the cutter.”

“We still have to get to Blue later,” Hunk said as Keith passed them to Pidge’s waiting hand. “Lance said her shoulder was dented or something. Hopefully he’ll be awake by then.”

Keith nodded. _I hope he’s doing alright._

“Allllright,” Pidge breathed, pushing herself into view again. “Hunk, can you run the cloak?”

“Sure.” The yellow paladin grabbed the computer lying off to the side, tapping in a code sequence and waiting. Moments later, the green lion’s head began to disappear from view. The trio cheered, before realizing that the cloaking stopped around Green’s midsection, where pixelated blurs began appearing. Anything beyond that was exposed.

“Dammit,” Pidge muttered. “Well, at least we know it was an issue with the panel down there.” She looked up at Green, projecting something that only the lion could hear, who rolled over onto her backside soon after. “Thanks, Green.”

Keith sat and watched them work for a little longer, but his mind wandered after they started discussing the lion’s mechanics. Engineering was never his strong suit in the Garrison - he had gotten to where he was entirely through his piloting skill.

“I’m gonna go walk around for a bit. See you guys,” he said, standing up and stretching his limbs.

“Bye, Keith! Let us know if Lance wakes up, alright?” Hunk said, and Keith nodded in reply.

He could’ve sworn Pidge winked at him as he left.

 _Now what?_ He walked down the dimly lit hallways, not paying attention to where exactly he was going. _I guess I’ll go check up on Lance, since Hunk asked me to._ Keith doubled back to where he came from, arriving at the healing pods soon after.

The room was dark, save for the green glow coming from Lance’s pod. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, wandering over to where his friend was suspended in liquid. He tapped the glass tentatively, waiting for a reaction. No luck. _Nice job, Keith. That didn’t work last time either._ His mind drifted to how strange Lance was acting when they were boarding Red.  _Lance_ has _been acting strange lately. Like, when I asked him if he wanted me to kiss his arm better, or whatever. Was it really that embarrassing? I thought people joked around like that all the time._

Keith shook his head. No point in wondering about those things. Lance would tell him if something was wrong, right? He turned around and pressed a palm to the machine in the center of the room, which lit up on contact.

 

_Hello, Red Paladin of Voltron. What would you like to do?_

_ > Check status. _

_Exit_

 

Keith pressed the first option, which led him to another screen.

 

_Which pod would you like to check the status of?_

_Pod #01232_

_ > Pod #11369 _

_Pod #21485_

_Pod #33920_

 

The screen accounted for all of the pods in the room. Keith selected the second one, where Lance was healing, and a hologram projected an information list to him.

POD#11369...

 

 _Name:_ Lance McClain

 _Occupation:_ Blue Paladin of Voltron

 _Estimated Time Remaining:_ 00:02:13 ticks

 _Time Spent:_ 01:14:34 ticks

_ > Exit. _

_More information._

_Oh,_ Keith thought. _Just a little longer, then._

He had backed up to the pod status screen and was about to shut off the machine when something caught his eye. At the bottom of the hologram screen, there was a small blinking green box. Other than a white exclamation point, the machine provided no other detail about what it might mean. Frowning, Keith tapped the box gently, waiting for a response. The screen didn’t react at first. He reached forward to tap it again, but the screen suddenly flashed and opened up a windowed screen. Lines of text flew across it, all in Altean. The machine started emitting a high pitched beeping sound. Alarmed, he took a couple of steps back, nearly bumping into a pod. The screen was glitching now, parts of it jumping and flashing out of sync with the others. The beeping had also faded to white noise and Keith plugged his ears with his palms, trying to block it out.

Behind him, he heard a hiss of steam, indicating that a pod was opening. _Shit._ He turned and rushed over to Lance’s pod, tripping on the steps and nearly tipping over, his sense of balance skewed because his hands were still over his ears. The noise only seemed to grow louder.

“Keith…” Lance murmured, knees wobbly as he stumbled out of the pod. “What the fuck is that noise?”

“Good to know you’re back,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “You alright?”

“I learned a few things while I was in there,” Lance replied. “One — healing pods do _not_ fix headaches. Two — My brain still feels like it’s going to implode, so if you wanna get rid of that noise right now I’d really appreciate it.”

“Don’t you think I would’ve solved the problem earlier if I knew how? Help me out here.” He directed Lance to the machine, which was still flashing.

“What did you do to the poor, poor machine, Keith?”

“What did _I_ do? Why did it start beeping out of nowhere? All I did was press that button—”

“Keith. Listen to me.” Lance grabbed him by the shoulders. The blue paladin stared him in the eyes. “You never, ever press random buttons on this ship. Don’t you remember that time the castle malfunctioned? What if it happens again?”

“Can we argue about that later? This thing is giving me a headache.” He wrangled himself out of Lance’s grip, walking around it to see if there was any plug to pull. It probably didn’t exist, as Altean technology had moved past plugs long ago, but he did see a tube connecting the machine to the energy reservoir of the ship.

“Oh, it’s giving _you_ a headache. At least you didn’t already have one.”

 _Oh. This works._ “Lance, d’you think there are more of these tubes around the castle?”

“Yeah, why? Don’t tell me you’re planning to—”

Keith ignored him and drew his dagger from its sheath, severing the tube in one quick slash. The machine stopped beeping and the hologram faded immediately. _Works._

“Oh my god, Keith, _no_. I’m pretty sure you just made it worse.”

“I shut it up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but you also like, I dunno,” Lance waved his hands around. “Broke it?”

“You said there were other ones around the castle. I’m sure Coran can fix it later. I’ll tell him about it during dinner or something.” Keith waved him over. “C’mon. Don’t you need to get changed?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> send me ur best memes


	6. Chapter 6

“Hunk,” Lance groaned into his palms. His face felt like it was burning. “You don’t understand, it was  _ so _ embarrassing.”

His friend pat him gently on the shoulder. “I’m sure it wasn’t that  bad. Keith would’ve asked you about it if he thought you were acting strange because of him, right? He’s always been a straightforward person.”

“He asked if I wanted him to kiss my arm better, as a joke. And I fucking blushed! If that isn’t a dead giveaway, I don’t know what is.”

“Well, when you were talking after he got you out of the pod, did he act weirdly?”

“No…” Lance huffed. “But that’s different! We barely had time to talk about it. There was a more important issue going on — you know that big machine in the middle of the room that gives you info on the pods? It was just screaming and flashing when I got out, and I told him to shut it up and he just cut the energy source. Oh shit, we should probably tell Coran about that, right?”

“Yeah, but we can always do that later. Stuff on this ship malfunction all the time. The other day, I was — oh hey, Pidge.”

The green paladin was grinning from ear to ear. “I knew it!”

“What! How long have you been standing there, listening?” Lance shouted.  _ Please, no. _

“Long enough,” Pidge smirked. “Long enough to know that you have a crush on Keith.”

“Please, please don’t tell him,” Lance begged, putting on his best kicked puppy face, even though nothing like that would ever work on Pidge. “I’ll get over it eventually.”

“I won’t.” Pidge winked. “I wanna see how this plays out anyway. Your secret is safe with me. Or us, I guess.”

“You know, I'm feeling significantly  _ less _ reassured.”

“C’mon, Lance! Have a little faith. We’ll figure something out.”

 

_ \----✄---- _

 

“Go, go, go!” Pidge whispered, pushing Lance with all the force in her body. For someone so small, she was stronger than he thought.

“You got this. Just talk to him! Ask him to train with you, or something.” Hunk whispered encouragingly. "Good luck!" A forceful pat from him sent Lance stumbling forward.  _ Ah, shit. My cover. _

“Oh. Hey, Keith,” he said casually, as if he was just strolling into the training room. “What’s up?”

“Lance?” Keith said, his bayard shrinking into its portable form as Lance walked in. “You’re never here voluntarily. Is this Shiro’s weird way of checking up on me? Tell him I’m fine.”

“No!” Lance exclaimed, then cleared his throat. “No. Can’t a guy want to train without being questioned?”

“End training sequence.” The Gladiator disappeared in a flash of bright blue light. Keith wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, walking over to Lance. “So, what did you want to do?” He picked up a cup of water from the floor, staring at Lance expectantly as he sipped.

_ Oh, fuck. The Gladiator only does solo or full team activities, so that’s off the list. Don’t we have any partner bonding exercises? _ “Uh...I guess I wanted to improve my hand-to-hand combat. Y’know, since I’m already a great sharpshooter. Expand your horizons, right?”

Keith squinted at him suspiciously. “...Sure.”

“So? What are you waiting for?” Lance hopped on the balls of his feet, bringing up his fists.

“Oh my god, you’re not actually planning on fighting me like that, right?” Keith rolled his eyes. “First of all, your stance is all wrong. Your legs are way too close together and your feet should be more angled.” He walked over, and Lance’s brain short-wired when Keith’s hands grabbed his arms to reposition them.

_ Shit shit shit shit nope. He’s way too close for thi—  _

“You wanna tighten your stomach. It’s an easy target if you don’t.”

“Where’d you learn all this stuff anyway?” Lance’s voice cracked and he could feel his face burning. He was suddenly glad he made Pidge and Hunk promise to leave them alone, because there was no way they’d ever let this go.

“Experience.”

“Ah. O-okay.”  _ I could die right here, right now, and everything would be fine. I hope Hunk knows I hid my will inside my pillowcase and that he should put “died of gay feelings” on my tombstone. _

Keith stepped away, and Lance took a breath. “Okay, your positioning isn’t bad right now. Want me to go easy on you?”

Lance put up an air of confidence, hoping Keith didn’t notice his bright red ears. “Give me everything you got.”

Barely five seconds later, Lance landed on his ass.

“Okay, I take that back. Give me a little less than everything you got.” Part of him wanted to loosen his core, to shift his arms and tilt his feet just so Keith would come back to reposition them.  _ No, no you don’t. He’s gonna think you’re a dumbass for forgetting that like, a minute after he taught you. That thing that Shiro always says — patience yields focus?  _ “Again?”

“Sure. On three, two, one…”

Lance went at him again, but each of his swings were blocked. His exaggerated blow at Keith’s side missed, and he took the opportunity to swing Lance around. For the second time in a few minutes, Lance landed on his ass.

“You wanna wait until  _ after _ I teach you some techniques to fight me? Or do you just like getting your ass kicked?”

_ Asshole.  _ “No,” Lance crossed his arms on the floor. “I just wanted to see how I’d do. Obviously, you’re better than me at close combat, and I’m better than you at ranged.”

“You? Admitting I’m better than you at something? What have you done with the real Lance?” Keith laughed, even through Lance’s disgruntled glare. “Alright, all jokes aside — you want me to train you?”

_ Yes, please. _ “If you’re offering.”

The red paladin thought for a moment. “How about this? I’ll teach you what I know about close range, and in turn, you give me a few tips on marksmanship. Deal?”

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> 


	7. Chapter 7

Keith splashed cold water onto his face, getting ready to go to bed. No matter how much he tried to clear his thoughts, his mind couldn’t stop going back to his training session with Lance earlier that day. Or any of the other weird stuff that had been happening lately. _Whatever elaborate prank they’re all planning, I hope they knock it off soon. Or at least tell me!_ He frowned. Lance was never good at keeping secrets, so maybe that was why he was always staring at him. _And that would sorta explain why he asked me to train?_

He was jolted out of his thoughts by a knock at the door. “Hm? Come in.”

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro said.

“I’m in the bathroom, gimme a sec.” He splashed his face once more with water and wiped it down with the towel on the rack before opening the door. “What’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you about something that might be affecting our team as a whole. You have a few minutes?”

“Yeah. I was just about to go get a drink of water anyway. So?”

Shiro cleared his throat. “I’ll try to get straight to the point. You’ve noticed how Lance has been acting lately, right?”

“Yeah. Is there something going on that I’m not getting? Because it seems like Pidge and Hunk are in on it.” Keith thought for a second, then groaned. “Not you too, Shiro!”

Shiro gave him a reassuring smile and a pat on the back. “It’s alright if you’re confused about your feelings, Keith. I’m sure if the two of you talk it out, you can fix this issue.”

“Didn’t they talk to you about this? C’mon, Shiro, just tell me what you guys are planning.” He looked up at Shiro suspiciously. “Is Allura in on this too?”

“What?” Shiro chuckled. “Keith, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, come _on._ This whole—” Keith waved his arms around frantically. “—prank thing you guys are doing, or whatever.”

“Prank?” Shiro looked clueless for a second before he burst out laughing. Keith just stared at him. _What’s so funny?_

Shiro was still snickering into his fist. “Oh my god,” he said between laughs. “You’re probably giving the poor kid a headache right now.”

“What? Shiro, now I’m just more confused. What’s going on?”

Shiro suppressed a laugh. “Nothing, nothing. Forget I said anything, alright? I still think you should take my other advice into account though — just talk it out with Lance, okay?” He stood, ruffling Keith’s hair. “Sleep soon.” The automatic door slid shut behind him, leaving Keith alone in his room and more puzzled than he was before.

 

\----✄----

 

At breakfast the next day, Coran had an announcement to make. “Unfortunately, when Keith severed the energy tube of the healing pod machine the other day, he also somehow affected the converter near the core of the ship.” Keith looked down at his bowl sheepishly. “Without a functioning converter, the castle will lose energy as time goes on. Luckily, we found a nearby neutral planet with the metal we need to repair said converter, so be prepared to land on the plant Saindor later today!”

“Neutral planet?” Lance asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that the planet’s inhabitants haven’t been conquered by Zarkon yet, but have not established alliances with Voltron or the Alteans in the past. The Saindorians are known to be a rather peaceful — although a bit quirky — people, so there should be no real threat coming from them.” Coran twirled the tips of his mustache between his fingers. “However, we wouldn’t want to land on their planet without any warning, so we sent a short greeting message to let them know we’re arriving. We’ll also need to trade some kind of good with them in order to get the metal, so we’ll be using a few Altean weapons and some of Hunk’s preserved food.”

Groans erupted around the table. “I spent all week making those!” Hunk sobbed. “Now we only have space goo and Lance’s bad jokes to feed us until we stop by another planet with vegetables like that again.”

“Hey! They’re not that bad!”

“Lance,” Pidge added. “They’re pretty bad.”

 _I should make it up to Hunk somehow._ _It’s my fault we need to trade the food he made for supplies._ He stopped the yellow paladin after their short breakfast, asking about what he could do about the food.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Keith. I was just joking around. We’re bound to find a new planet soon with a new combination of fruits and vegetables. Besides, I wanted to try frying the food goo for a different flavor. This week will be the perfect one to try that!” He grinned. “Thanks for offering anyway.”

“No problem,” Keith said. “Let me know if I can help you out with anything.”

Hunk thought for a moment. “How about this? I, uh, think Lance has had something on his mind for the last few days. Maybe you should talk to him.”

“Uh, alright. Have you tried asking him?”

“I have! He’s being super vague about it, though. Maybe if you try talking to him about it, he’ll open up to you.” He glanced at the time nervously. “Oh, would you look at that. Well, I’ll be in the library. Say hi to Lance for me, won’t you?”

Before Keith make the connection that it made no sense for Lance to hide something from Hunk but tell Keith, Hunk had already vanished. _Why’s everyone telling me to talk it out with Lance? What is there to talk about anyway? Before I know it, Pidge’ll come running down here telling me that Lance has bondingmomentitus and the only way to cure it is if I cradle him in my arms again. Okay, now that's jsut weird let’s pretend I didn’t think about oh—_

“Oh! Hi, Keith. Have you seen Hunk anywhere?” Lance asked, rubbing the hem of his coat between his fingers. “I think he asked me to do something for him before.”

“I just passed him. He went that way,” Keith directed, pointing down the hallway leading to the library.

“Okay! Thanks,” Lance grinned, walking away.

 _Oh. I should ask about what’s wrong, right? Hunk asked me to and he doesn’t look like he’s in that much of a rush._ “Hey, wait up, Lance.”

“Hm?” He stopped in his tracks, turning to face Keith. “What’s up?”

“Ah, I was, uh, wondering,” Keith said eloquently. _Crap. I should’ve thought about how to address this._ “Hunksaidsomethingwaswrongareyouokay?” _No, Keith, that’s not how you do it._

“What? Can you say that again, but at normal talking speed?”

Keith couldn’t help but sneak a snarky comment in there. “I said, if you were paying attention, Hunk told me something was bothering you and I wanted to ask if you were alright.” Keith paused for a bit, pondering. “From the way he said it, I think it might have something to do with me?”

“O-oh. Did he?” Lance stuttered. Keith could’ve sworn he turned and glared daggers in the direction of the library.

“Lance, if there’s something I’m doing that’s bothering you, just tell me. I don’t really mean half the shit I say about you, you know.”

“Hey, you know what, I changed my mind. We’ve got a little bit of time to kill before the mission. Wanna hit the deck?”

“Stop changing the subject, unless you’re gonna talk to me about it while we’re training.”

“No, Keith, not the _training_ deck, ya nerd. The _deck_ deck. Come on! I’ll show you there.” He beckoned Keith in the opposite direction. Keith had to run to keep up with the other boy’s longer strides. _It’s not my fault he’s taller than me. Damn you, short genes. Also, he still hasn’t answered the question._

“What deck deck?” Keith asked as he jogged alongside Lance.

“You know the observatory room right? It’s the section right above it. Do you have music you can bring? I go there to relax sometimes, when I wanna get away from it all.”

“Oh. That’s nice. Speaking of getting up there, you gotta tell me what’s going on when we reach the observatory.”

“What do you mean by tell you what’s going on? Nothing’s going on.” He began climbing up the stairs two steps at a time.

Keith frowned, rushing to keep up with him. _Why can’t he just cooperate with me for once?_ “I asked if something was wrong. You seem a bit off lately.”

“Off?” Lance stumbled over a step, catching himself quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Stop avoiding the question. Are you guys planning something behind my back?”

“Are we?”

Keith sighed exasperatedly. “Can you knock it off? I’m asking you because I wanted to help, not so you can just ignore me. If this is part of your dumb prank, it’s not funny anymore.”

“Prank?” Lance stopped suddenly, turning with a confused look on his face. “What prank?”

Keith scowled. “Don’t play this game with me, Lance, I know you guys are up to something.”

“Keith, there isn’t any prank. We aren’t planning anything.”

“Sounds like something someone who’s planning a prank would say.” He squinted suspiciously. “Just tell me! I won’t be upset or anything. Well, not any more than I am now.”

“I’m serious!” Lance threw his hands up in the air. “There’s nothing going on.”

“Then why is everyone acting so suspicious? You know, yesterday Shiro showed up in my room out of _nowhere_ and told me to “talk out my feelings” with you. And when I asked him what he meant, he just laughed at me and told me to forget about it. Then, this morning, Hunk tells me the exact same thing!” He thought for a second, staring at his boots. “Maybe...maybe they’re planning something against _both_ of us.”

Lance looked even more confused now. “You think they’re planning a prank on both of us?”

“Yes! That would explain your confusion, Shiro and Hunk’s awkward conversations, and that one random ass wink Pidge gave me a few days ago. Something’s going on between those three.”

“Uhh...sure, Keith. You wanna grab your earbuds and shit? I’ll wait here.”

Keith nodded, determined. _Finally! A breakthrough._ He pumped his fist in a little victory sign as he looked around his room for his tablet. _Come on, come on, where did I put it — aha!_ The earbud wire was poking out from underneath a pile of clothes he had meant to take to the washers a few days ago.

“Got it. Where’s this...deck deck you’re talking about?” Keith felt in a much better mood, now that he was sure Lance wasn’t plotting against him.

Lance beamed. “Right this way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> lemme know how i'm doing!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im literally writing this as i go along, ple as e bear with me

Lance was convinced that Keith was trying to kill him. _Even if he somehow miraculously didn’t notice that I turn red every time he brushes past me, there’s no way he hasn’t caught on from Hunk and Shiro’s very obvious attempts at getting him to talk to me._ But here he was, sitting next to Lance, deep in thought about the nonexistent “prank” the other paladins were planning.

Lance sighed. _Of all the people I could have a crush on, it had to be the most oblivious person in this galaxy. No, the universe._ He reached into his pocket to skip the current song, his hand brushing against Keith’s as he did so. Jerking away, Lance smiled at him nervously, hoping that his face didn’t look as hot as it felt.

 _Oh. He didn’t even notice._ Keith was off in his own world, brows furrowed and a hand on his chin, the earbud wires pooling around him. Lance dropped his hands awkwardly, being careful not to bump Keith again as he went to play a new song. He leaned back against the wall, trying to relax. _Breathe, Lance._

“So,” he said. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Huh?” Keith started, taking out an earbud. “What did you say?”

“I asked what kind of music you liked. Wait, lemme guess — metal? MCR?”

“What? No.” Keith leaned over, earbud in hand. “I dunno how to describe it, but you can listen.”

Lance paused for a moment, staring at the earbud. _Oh shit._ He reached out tentatively, feeling a jolt when his hand touched Keith’s. “Ow! You shocked me!”

“Whoops,” Keith said, not sounding very sorry.

Lance took the earbud and replaced his own with it, eyes widening in surprise as he listened. “This is pretty good, dude. I always thought you listened to like, screamo or something.”

“Why?” Keith asked, frowning.

“Dunno. What genre is this?”

“I think it’s like, low-fi hip hop or something. I got some other stuff too, but it helps me relax.”

“Yeah, I could see how.” Lance closed his eyes. _Let the music engulf you, Lance. Don’t think about how you’re literally sharing earbuds with your crush right now, or how he’s close enough to link your fingers woah we are not thinking about that right now. Focus on the music!_

Keith nudged him on the shoulder and Lance opened an eye to look at him. The red paladin just reached over Lance, grabbing at his own music player. _Holy shit, what is he doing?_ “Show me what you listen to.”

Lance wouldn’t be surprised if Keith could _hear_ his heart pounding in his chest right now. He was way, _way_ too close to pretend that everything was fine. “U-uh, alright, you could’ve just asked.” He handed Keith his tablet and earbuds nervously. “Go wild.”

The other boy took it, but glanced up at Lance concernedly. “You alright? You uh, look a little red.”

“O-oh. I’m, uh. Fine. Yes.” He mentally reprimanded himself. _Why the hell did I say yes?_

“Okay, if you say so,” Keith said, leaning back against the wall. He scrolled through Lance’s playlist for a moment, looking at but not playing the songs. “By the way, what’s so special about this deck?”

“Oh! Well, first of all,” Lance said, counting each thing on his fingers.  “Nobody else comes here but me. It’s also the highest level on the ship—”

“Really? That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah! And it’s got this really nice view, I just have it closed right now. Wanna see?” Lance grinned. _Should I…? Y’know what, fuck it._ After a moment’s pause, he stood and extended his hand to Keith.

He smiled up at him and grabbed it, lifting himself. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Lance pulled Keith along as they walked to the other side of the room, where a control panel with several unmarked buttons and lights blinked. They were still linked by the earbuds and Keith’s player had began a new song. After a few hours of experimenting the day he found this place, he had basically memorized what each button did. He pressed the blue one, then the red one twice, and watched the metal screen over the windows lift. Lance heard Keith gasp behind him as he adjusted the sliders, dimming the lights in the room and letting the starlight stream in. He motioned for Keith to sit down next to him, leaning against the machine so that they were facing the open space.

“Lance,” Keith breathed. “That’s amazing, holy shit. I — wow.”

“I know, right? It kinda...it reminds me of home. Like the view back on Earth, y’know?”

“Oh...yeah.” Keith was silent after that, just staring out at the view in front of him. Stars sprinkled the sky like powder, some gleaming bright and others barely noticeable. The beautiful moons of the planet they were passing seems to glow, and they were close enough to see individual craters and mountains on them. Asteroids and comets streaked past them, covering the space in stripes of light.

_This is nice._

 

\----✄----

 

“Paladins, we will be landing on Saindor in thirty minutes. Please report to the control room soon for your mission instructions.” Coran spoke over the ship’s loudspeakers. Lance sniffed, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“Oh, shit,” he murmured. Still groggy, he turned to shift the weight from his shoulder before realizing—

 _Oh fuck, that’s Keith. I fell asleep on — wait no, he fell asleep on me? We both fell asleep._ The red paladin was breathing softly, eyes closed. They were so close that Lance could feel each breath on his neck, could feel his shoulder pressed up against his own. In his ear, the song had changed to something he recognized. _Oh. Is that The Xx? Not bad._ Lance directed his attention back to Keith. _Let him sleep a little longer? That would be selfish of me, but technically I’m helping him out by letting him rest a little longer, right? But I’m also just indulging myself and yeah I should just wake him up._

“Keith,” he said softly, shaking him by the shoulder. “Wake up, we gotta go. Planets to save, Galra to fight, diplomatic exchanges involving Hunk’s delicious food to make.”

“We gotta...huh?” Keith murmured, eyes fluttering. “What are we s’pposed to do?” His words slurred together as he blinked himself out of sleep.

 _Fuck. That’s adorable._ “We have to go downstairs and meet up with everyone else. Come on.”

“Oh...okay.” The red paladin sat up, stretching and rubbing his eyes. He cupped a hand over his mouth as he yawned, hands tangling in the wires curled around them. “Ah, sorry.”

“U-um. Don’t worry about it.”

Keith pushed himself off the ground slowly, straightening out his jacket before helping Lance up. “Let’s go.”

He followed Keith down the winding flights of stairs until they reached the control room. Hunk and Allura were missing, but everyone else was present. Pidge wiggled her eyebrows at Lance when he entered the room, nudging him in the ribs as he sat across from her. When Shiro’s back was turned, he flipped her off.

“Hunk says he’s gathering some supplies,” Shiro informed. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.” He grinned at Lance and gave a him a thumbs up behind Keith’s back. Lance choked, covering it up quickly with a fake cough. _Jesus christ, why me._

“How about Allura?” Lance asked, changing the subject.

“She’s preparing the castle for landing. After Hunk gets here, you should all get into uniform. You won’t need your lions, since we’re going down by castle, but the atmosphere of Saindor is unsuitable for human beings. I'll be staying on the ship in case something goes wrong.” Coran explained. “Aren’t you guys excited? It’s your first diplomatic mission where each of you will play a more important role than shaking the hands of our allies!”

“Not really,” Hunk said dejectedly, standing with several containers of food in his hands. “I really, really wanted to eat this.”

“Aw, Hunk,” Lance said, standing and patting his friend’s shoulder sympathetically. “Just think about the fried goo, remember?”

“I did a taste-test for it an hour ago,” Hunk frowned. “It tastes like regular goo, but slightly singed.” He paused for a second. “Or maybe that was just because I burned it.”

“No worries, Hunk! The two of us will find something different eventually,” Coran beamed.

Hunk laughed nervously. “I’ll, er, think about it. Thanks for the offer. We’re waiting for Allura, right?”

“Sorry for the wait,” Allura called from the doorway. “I’ll go over the specifics later, but you should know that there are a few main points that I want to go over. One, no flirting with the locals. The Saindorians are an almost exclusively aromantic race and do not tolerate anyone, _defender of the universe_ or not, flirting with their diplomats.” This point was accompanied by a stern glare in Lance’s direction, which he replied to with a sheepish grin. “Two, they might be a little...hard to understand. Make sure you aren’t misinterpreting what they’re trying to say. And three, we’re meeting back at the castle in...approximately four of your Earth hours.”

The paladins nodded apprehensively. Lance was tempted to raise his hand and ask what she meant by “hard to understand,” but thought against it. That one phrase went something like “exchange goods with aliens that might misunderstand you first, ask questions later,” right? Besides, worst case scenario, they could always ask Allura or Coran for help. They obviously seemed to have some past experience with the aliens.

“Alright. By the way, if you happen to finish early, feel free to look around the marketplace! The Saindorians have been huge players in interplanetary trade for this section of the galaxy for millions of years. If you look closely, maybe you’ll even find some things from Earth.”

“Really?” Lance asked excitedly. “I wonder what they have...do you think we could get some new music?”

“Maybe.” Allura shrugged. “Just make sure you get everything we actually need. Good luck, everyone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> shoot me some words of encouragement (if u wanna)
> 
> if anyone's interested in what keith was listening to, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJvCnFqSViA) was the playlist i was thinking of while writing!


	9. Chapter 9

Keith couldn’t believe what he was seeing when they finally landed. Although the team had seen many strange planets before, Saindor was... _interesting_ to say the least. It seemed to be covered in a thick layer of mud, with skyscraper-like settlements on elevated, dry platforms of land. The viscous surface gleamed up at them, reflecting the castle’s soft blue glow. From below, two figures seemed to be waving the castleship down, making a series of exaggerated gestures that Coran somehow understood. They landed on a flat, dry patch of land, where the leader of the Saindorians stood.

As the castle’s boarding ramp unfolded and the paladins of Voltron stepped down, they rushed forward to greet the group. Keith stared at the alien in front of them as they conversed with Allura quietly in their home language. They were a little taller than Shiro and had pale gray sclera and large, black pupils. The sides of their neck had serrated flaps which rose and fell as they breathed. The alien had two antennae-like protrusions from the top of their head, which waved animatedly as they spoke. They seemed to be wearing some kind of formal garb, a long purple cloak that dragged messily behind them as well as a black cloth that hung down to their knees. Behind them, a thin tail dragged along the sand, spikes protruding from the end with webbing between them.

“Paladins, this is Xen’ix, the leader of the Saindorians. Xen’ix, the paladins of Voltron. We’re here to make a peaceful exchange of goods, and we hope your people like what we offer.”

“Yes,” Xen’ix warbled. “We are very glad you are all here to help us expand our economy and exchange such wonderful goods with us, very glad.” They clasped their hands together, grinning at the group and exposing two rows of razor sharp teeth. _Huh?_

“I’m glad to hear that, Xen’ix. If you would take us to your marketplace, we would appreciate it.”

“Of course, please, right this way, we will show you to where you can…” Their quiet voice faded as they slid along the ground, dragging their feet. They moved surprisingly fast on the dusty ground and Keith had to speed walk to catch up.

“Guys, did you get what they were saying?”

“Dunno. Something about being glad to trade with us? They have a really roundabout way of speaking.” Lance replied.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “Is this what Allura meant by them being difficult to understand?”

“I think so.”

The six of them followed the leader down a winding path around the plateau until they approached a river of thick mud. “This way, yes, step directly into the flowing mud.”

Pidge made a face. “That’s gonna be a pain to wash off.”

“Pain?” Xen’ix asked, their eyes widening in surprise. “No, it will not be painful at all, it won’t. Please, step right in. You will find that it is easier to…walk in than you might expect.”

Xen’ix gave an awkward smile, which only sent a shiver down Keith’s spine instead of comforting him. They dropped into the chocolate colored mud, disappearing into it as if it had absorbed them.

Allura took one look at the mud and shoved Shiro in front of her. “You first. This part always weirds me out.”

Shiro turned behind him and stared at the rest of the paladins, his eyes pleading for help. Nobody volunteered to take his place. He sighed, stretching out a foot and tentatively touching the surface. His surprised shout was drowned out as the mud pulled him underneath, suctioning on.

“How about,” Hunk began. “I go last to, uh, cover for you guys. Make sure nothing’s sneaking up on us, right?” He grinned, taking steps backwards slowly.

“Ah, yeah, me too, actually.” Lance chimed in.

 _I don’t wanna go in there next. It’s so...eugh._ “What, are you scared?” he taunted, hoping Lance would fall for it.

“Me? Scared?” Lance’s gaze snapped to him. “I, um, I’m not scared. Yeah, you know what? I’ll go next, just to prove it to ya!” He ran at the mud as if it had offended his family, yelling a shaky “wahoo!” as it engulfed him.

“Works every time,” Keith smirked.

“Hey! I can hear you, y’know.” Lance shouted indignantly in his ear.

 _Oh, yeah. Voice comms._ “Guess I’m next.” Keith walked into the syrupy mud. It was surprisingly cold and more... _liquid-like_ as he was pulled past the initial layer. Underneath, it was barely mud at all — tinted but clear water allowed him to see hundreds of feet underneath them. _Woah. They’ve built an entire travel system down here. That’s amazing._

He saw large groups of Saindorians propelling themselves through the water, their tails swishing fervently behind them. Signs in what was probably Saindorian pointed to different tunnels and passageways. A little bit away, Shiro and Xen’ix were waiting by a strange plant, but Lance was nowhere to be seen. _Where did he disappear off to? I jumped in right afte—_

“Boo!” Lance appeared out of nowhere and Keith’s hand instinctively shot towards his bayard. The blue paladin raised his own palms in surrender. “Woah there, don’t impale me now.”

“Don’t do that again,” he grumbled. “Otherwise I just might.” Lance chuckled nervously in reply. The two of them swam through the water to the plant, which looked like a cross between a lobster and a fern. Xen’ix greeted them with a wave. Their clothing seemed to be waterproof, cloak spilling out behind them elegantly. _Oh. That looks a lot less unsightly in the water than it does on land._

Shortly after, Allura, Pidge, and finally Hunk joined them. “Where to next?” Allura asked.

“Right this way, yes, please follow me,” Xen’ix spoke, bubbles trickling to the surface from their mouth. “We will be passing through a…” They paused as they tried to find the right word. “Hole.”

“Hole?” Pidge echoed. “Er, are you sure?”

“Maybe not.” The Sandorian thought for a moment. “I apologize, I am not the most articulate speaker of your language. Eintish, is it?” They fiddled with the edges of their cloak nervously.

“English,” Allura corrected gently. “And I think you mean tunnel.”

“Ah, yes, tunnel. The tunnel system, yes.”

Xen’ix beckoned them before kicking off in the water, spinning forward with a twist of their tail. The paladins and Allura followed, allowing their boosters to propel them. Occasionally, they saw groups of Sandorians stare and point at them. It must’ve been a weird sight — their leader swimming through the water and a bunch of aliens right behind them.

The water felt colder the deeper they went. _How much further do we have to swim? At this rate, we’ll be out of air before we arrive._ He motioned to Shiro, tapping his helmet first and then the fuel tank on his back. The black paladin shrugged and tapped Allura on the shoulder to ask.

Xen’ix seemed to catch on their conversation. “Ah, it will only be a short while before you arrive at our marketplace, not much further to go, right this way…” They swam faster, streamlining through the water as if they had been fired from a cannon.

“That’s not much better…” Lance commented. “We burn more fuel if we go faster anyway.” Still, he turned up the power on his boosters, leaving a trail of bubbles behind him as he caught up with Xen’ix.

Keith did the same. _Better to take their word for it._ As he caught up, he watched Lance kick his feet through the water, his arms slicing through the water with practiced familiarity. The motion made him slightly faster than everyone else, to the point where he was almost catching up to Xen’ix. “You can swim?” Keith asked.

“Dude, I grew up right by the shoreline.”

“Oh, yeah. Varadero Beach, right?”

Keith heard Lance’s breath catch. “You remembered?”

“Yeah, didn’t you mention it once?”

“Y-yeah. I did. Didn’t think you’d remember though.”

Keith could’ve sworn he heard someone snickering to themselves, but how likely was that? _Probably helmet interference, or something._ He swam through the water, taking in as many sights as he could. The strange plants he had seen before seemed to have vanished in this area of the water, replaced by something that looked vaguely like living gemstones gleaming in the water. They came in a variety of different colors and appeared to glow. Occasionally, the jewels would tumble a few spaces over and Keith saw something small and dark scuttling underneath them.

“Peacemakers of Voltron,” Xen’ix interjected. “We will be approaching to the surface very shortly, just so you all know. Our journey is nearly complete, you will be able to see the marketplace right as we get there, yes.”

 _Peacemakers?_ “That’s pretty far off from paladins,” Keith whispered. Shiro shushed him, hiding a smile behind his hand.

They broke through the surface a short time later, mud staining the fronts of their helmets and obscuring their vision. Keith tried to wipe it off, but his hand was equally as dirty and only smeared it over his visor.

“How do we get this stuff off?” Hunk asked. Keith couldn’t see through the thick substance on his helmet, but he figured Hunk had encountered a similar problem.

“Stuff?” The Saindorian leader twittered. “What stuff? There should not be any marketplace items here, I will have to tell my advisors to check that…”

“No, I mean this...mud. It’s stuck all over my helmet.”

“Oh! Oh, I am very sorry, I will get someone to help you with that immediately…” Xen’ix said nervously. “My longest, er, I mean, deepest apologies.”

Keith shrugged the mud off him, pulling himself out of it. He was about to take off his helmet and try shaking it off before remembering what Coran said about the Saindorian atmosphere. A few ticks later, someone handed him a dry cloth, which he used to clear off the mud.

“Hey, could someone help me out here?”

Keith turned to see Lance scrambling to get a hold on the ground, his fingers grabbing wildly at it but sliding off from slickness. He snickered at the sight, but walked to the edge and grabbed Lance’s hand to pull him out.

Lance stumbled to his feet, nearly slipping back into the water again. Keith held onto his arm until he was a little ways from the river. He watched as Lance took a towel from a Saindorian standing nearby, wiping down. “Oh. Uh, thanks, Keith.”

Keith nodded in reply. _Is he blushing? Must be the lighting. The planet’s pretty dark anyway, and there’s no reason why he’d be blushing, so that’s probably it. Right?_ He shook his head to himself and looked to the mud, checking to see if anyone else needed help. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro giving Lance a sympathetic pat on the back, to which the blue paladin responded with a groan that sounded vaguely like “please.”

Keith didn’t have long to think about the strange interaction before Allura cleared her throat, demanding that the paladins pay attention. “Xen’ix will be guiding us to the marketplace entrance, but they can only lead us so far. However, they have been kind enough to provide us with a list of advisors who will be able to assist us in finding what we need!”

“Many thanks, Princess, but it was not a problem…” Xen’ix chirped.

Allura smiled faintly. “Before I tell you who those Saindorians are, please pay attention to what you’ll need to find. Keith, you’re in charge of getting a set of forteminun tools; Shiro, four…” Keith zoned out while she was reading the rest of the list, choosing instead to stare up at the sleek metallic building on the cliff above them. For a semi-aquatic society, the aliens were impressively developed on land as well.

Keith tuned back into Allura’s spiel when she mentioned the names, making a mental note to ask around for a _Zelir_ once he got into the marketplace.

“And...that’s it! Good luck to you all. If you finish early, feel free to look around. We will be meeting at the central square—”

“Yes, the Soulindian Square, in the center of the market, you can’t miss it!” Xen’ix interjected helpfully.

“Thank you, Xen’ix,” Allura said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “We will be meeting up there in three and a half hours, to make time for our journey back. The marketplace is just up this path.”

 

\----✄----

 

Keith stared at the array of items laid out in front of him, tapping his chin. The Saindorian in front of him was carefully inspecting the lump of semi-sentient scrap metal Pidge had made the other day. “I am willing to exchange one of these...what do you call them?”

“Uhh…” Keith made up a name on the spot. “Yo-yos.” Keith blanched. _Yo-yos? Really?_

“Yes, your Earth yo...yo. Two of my table objects for this, eh, thing. Whichever one you prefer whose value equates that of your yo-yo.”

“Hmm…” The disks on the table _seemed_ like they would be of value, but the way the merchant was grinning at him made him reconsider. What if they weren’t even compatible with the ancient CD player they had found at a flea market at another planet? _It probably isn’t._

“Sorry, I think I’ll pass.”

“Pass? You want a pass?” The Saindorian ducked underneath their table, searching for something.

Keith waved his hands. “No, no, I mean, I’m good. I, er, want my yo-yo back.”

The salesperson shot back up. “You are good? I am very glad to hear that, which one do you want?”

The red paladin groaned. Striking up a deal with these aliens was easy enough, but telling them you didn’t want their stuff anymore was nearly impossible.

“I don’t want any of these, sorry,” Keith explained.

“Three things, whichever ones you want. Look, I have many valuables! Other Saindorians would not consider giving you so many for your yo-yo, but I know a good item when I see one.”

_This guy’s definitely flaking. Pidge put that shit together in a few minutes. It probably can’t do any more than blink, but whatever floats this guy’s boat. I guess I don’t really have a choice._

“I guess I’ll take these,” Keith said absentmindedly, picking up three shiny, label-less disks.

“Much thanks, sir,” the Saindorian said, baring their fangs delightedly. The so-called yo-yo disappeared behind their robes.

Keith dropped the CDs in the bag with the forte-whatever tools that Allura had asked them to trade. Pidge’s strange contraption was the last thing he carried with him. If he wanted to barter for other things on sale, he would have to use things that he had bought from other merchants.

 _It’s almost time to go,_ he thought. _Thirty more minutes before we meet up with everyone else. I guess I’ll walk around._

He wandered through the bustling streets, rows and rows of merchants calling out to him, advertising their goods. As he entered the food district of the marketplace, the smells that wafted to his nose were so enticing that Keith considered trading off the disks he had bought for them. All around him, exotic alien foods that caused his mouth to water sat on dainty little plates. _I wonder if Hunk was able to get to here. He’d love this stuff. Maybe we can come around as a group later and we’ll be able to trade whatever we have left for some of this._

His food daydreams were interrupted by a loud bang, a shriek, and a _lot_ of commotion. The Saindorian chefs around him looked nervous. A few of them were already bringing their plates further into their booths, worried that whatever was happening next would ruin their foods. Keith turned just as a blue-white streak darted past him, followed by a group of angry Saindorian guards.

 _Wait. Is that Lance?_ Keith did a double take, glancing back at the figure who had just rounded the corner. _Yeah, that’s definitely Lance. Why is he being chased by the guards? How did he manage to fuck up a marketplace exchange?_

He saw Lance duck underneath an empty booth in the alleyway as the sentries stormed right past. Keith glanced to see if anyone was watching, but everyone seemed occupied with the wreck the Saindorian security had just caused. He took the moment to slip underneath the dusty curtains of the booth, coming face-to-face with a very surprised Lance.

“Oh, hey there, Keith,” Lance said breathlessly. “Scared me for a sec.”

“What the hell were you doing there?” Keith whispered angrily, crouching so he fit underneath the booth. “Why were the guards chasing you?”

Lance wrung his wrists nervously, his knees bouncing and knocking into Keith’s. “Well, y’know how these guys just have their food laying out in the open like that? I thought I could, uh, take free samples. So I asked the merchant if I could have a bite of this _really_ tasty pastry thing, and they didn’t say anything, so I just bit in. I was halfway through the third one when they started shouting something about stealing, and I was trying to explain to them that I _wasn’t_ but they wouldn’t listen — or maybe they didn’t understand me? anyway — they called over the guards and I started running and—”

“Lance, jesus christ.” Keith groaned exasperatedly. “Didn’t the time you got that nasty alien virus teach you anything about eating random food? What are we gonna do now?” Keith asked, squeezing himself right next to Lance so they were both obscured from view by the tablecloth in the booth.

“Uh, wait it out? They can’t look for me forever, can they?”

“We have to meet up in the _open_ square in twenty minutes.”

“Ah. That might be a problem.” Lance scratched his neck, his elbow banging into the wall in the process. He winced. “Um, Allura can talk it out with them, right? Wasn’t she speaking in Saindorian with Xen’ix before?”

“I hope so. Wait, speaking of Allura — where are your tools? Or whatever you were supposed to buy?”

Lance glanced down, patting the sides of his armor before paling. “Oh, _shit._ ”

“What? Did you forget to?” Keith sighed. _We had at least three hours to do this with the help of those advisors and he still didn’t find it?_

“No! It was the first thing I bought, but I probably dropped it or something when I was being chased.”

“How could you just drop a bag of tools? Aren’t they like, heavy or something? And you didn’t notice until now?” After a brief pause in his barrage of questions, Keith asked one more, “Do you think there’s any way you can get a replacement before we have to go?”

“Okay, first of all, Allura had me buy this tiny ass chip. So no, it wasn’t heavy! I had it tucked into the little pockets on my suit — did you know there are pockets? Second, the Saindorian who sold it to me told me that was the last one they had. At least, I think that’s what they said.”

“So what you’re telling me is, you’re majorly fucked.”

“Ahah, see, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re also stuck in this situation with me, since you found me. So _we’re_ majorly fucked.”

“Oh, wow,” Keith deadpanned. “Thanks a lot.”

Lance pouted. “You don’t have to be so mean about it. I mean, you were the one who went after me, so it was technically voluntary, right?”

“That doesn’t make any sense, but whatever. What should we do now?” Keith checked the ticker embedded in his visor. “We have fifteen minutes.”

“Well, for starters, we can check out this area for the chip. I dropped it s—”

Keith pressed a hand over Lance’s mouth, cutting him off. He pressed a finger to his lips and Lance’s voice died off.

They heard a series of screeches and hisses, followed by something that sounded like water bubbling on a stovetop. Keith removed his hand from Lance’s face for a moment to flick through his helmet settings, finding a Saindorian translator. The screen flickered for a bit before projecting a crude translation of what they were saying into his vision.

“What?” Lance whispered. “What are they saying?”

“Shh!” Keith hissed, clapping his hand over the blue paladin’s mouth again as his eyes read the translations.

_Where did the blue one go? He stole my merchandise, do you understand how much a plate of that is worth? More than your salaries combined!_

_Esteemed one, we’re working on that right now. We still need to comb the streets of this area and then the next._

_How can you pay back what he stole from me? It's too late anyway, the guests are arriving soon and I'm missing an entire serving! What will Xen'ix say?_

_Our deepest apologies. However, we did find this chip that the thief dropped. It could be valuable in luring him out, as it seems very important. If you would give us a few sunrises to sort thi—_

_A few sunrises! How much money will I have lost in earnings by then? You better make sure he is able to pay the fine._

_Of course, esteemed one._

Keith waited until their footsteps faded before he spoke again. “They’re looking for you.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Well, yeah, I knew that. What were they saying?”

Keith listed the important points of their conversation. “One, the Saindorian you stole from is either royalty or really, _really_ famous. The guard kept calling them ‘esteemed one.’ Two, the stuff you ate is really expensive, and now that alien is really upset, and three, the guard has your chip.”

“They do?” Lance grinned. “Hey, where are you going?”

Keith stood as best as he could in the cramped booth. “We should run before they loop back around and find us.” He grabbed Lance by the arm, lifting him up. “Come on!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> hopefully it's not moving too slowly for you guys ;-;
> 
> this chapter is mostly worldbuilding for this part of the story! sorry if u guys were looking for fluff ;=;


	10. Chapter 10

Lance stumbled to his feet and peeled the dusty flap aside, following as Keith weaved into the crowd. “We should just run,” he suggested. “We stand out like this anyway. There’s no point in trying not to draw attention to ourselves.”

Keith looked back at him, contemplating. “Alright, why not.”

“Race you there,” Lance said with a grin, and took off. His eyes darted around, searching for openings in the crowd where he could slip through. “‘scuse me, coming through, sorry, important paladin business to do,” he huffed as he brushed by the startled and slightly annoyed Saindorians.

“Lance, where the hell are you going?” Keith was shouting, barreling through the extremely annoyed Saindorians. “The marketplace is that way!”

“Oh.” Lance skidded to a halt. “Right. I knew that.” He crossed his arms when Keith grabbed the collar of his paladin armor, dragging Lance behind him. “Okay, I get it, let me go!”

“Sorry about that.”

Lance thought for a second that he was apologizing to him, before realizing that several irritated aliens were glaring at them. He smiled sheepishly, whispering a quiet “sorry!” before speed-walking after Keith.

“No more racing,” the red paladin said sternly. “We don’t want to piss off more of these people.”

Lance agreed. Although Allura said that the Saindorians were a peaceful species, they did still have those creepy teeth. _ I don’t want those anywhere near me, no thank you. _

“This way,” Keith muttered, grabbing Lance by the arm and directing him into an alleyway. “I passed through here before. It’ll get us to a place closer to the square. The local path is longer anyway.”

The blue paladin nodded.  _ Well, the sooner the better, right? _ He hadn’t really spent much time figuring out the streets here — once he found where the chip was being sold after asking around, he hadn’t bothered to explore the giant marketplace. It was through coincidence that he stumbled upon the same district as Keith did.

The alleyway was definitely less sophisticated than the main streets. Instead of the neatly marked off roads and grid street system of the newer streets, these looped around and even went underground at certain points. Lance stuck close to Keith, his hand resting uneasily on his bayard.  _ You never know. Better safe than sorry. _

“Keith?”

“Hm?”

“You know where we’re going, right?”

“Yes. Just trust me, we’re almost there.”

Lance didn’t reply, choosing to check the ticker on his helmet visor again. They had seven minutes before the arranged meeting time.  _ Allura’s already on my case about arriving late. Hopefully we’ll get there on time. _ A thought suddenly struck him.

“Keith?”

“What?”

“What are we gonna do about the chip?”

“Uh, I dunno. We don’t have time to go and track down the guard who took it, and who knows what kind of shit we’ll get ourselves into if we do? It’s better to ask Allura to talk with Xen’ix about it; maybe they’ll sort it out with that merchant.”

“Yeah, I hope so. I mean, if I didn’t, we would have to go find something else around the castle to trade off, then wait until the chip alien restocked. I mean, I already feel pretty bad about it, and this would just make it harder for everyone…”  _ Fuck. I’m rambling. _

“Hey,” Keith turned, patting Lance on the shoulder awkwardly. “It’s fine. You’ve done worse.”

“Hey!” Lance yelled indignantly. “Is that supposed to be reassuring? Because that’s the probably the second most shitty reassurement I’ve ever heard, next to when Pidge told me that she was going to keep my...”  _ Wait a minute. I can’t tell Keith that— _

“When Pidge told you she was going to keep what?” Keith asked curiously, cocking his head.

“Her...promise that she, uh, her modifications to my lion, I mean suit, weren’t going to ruin the...fabric…”  _ Nobody with a brain would buy that. Why did I say that, jesus christ. _

“The fabric?”  _ Now you just confused him. Great job, Lance. _

“Uh, sure. Yeah. Anyway,” Lance said nervously, trying to move onto the next topic.

“What modifications did she make? Was it the pocket thing? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a modification to my equipment outside of that time everyone got their translators synched with the Altean database we found.”

“Oh. Yeah, yep, that was it.”  _ Whew, thank you and your obliviousness, Keith. Is obliviousness even a word? _

Keith laughed. “Lance, I don’t believe that for a second. Tell me the truth.”

“W-what? What don’t you believe, and why not? I want a five paragraph, double spaced essay on your reasons.”  _ I take that back. Who is this boy, and what has he done with the oblivious Keith I know and love? Okay, not love. Argh, you know what I mean. _

“You’re hiding something, right? That’s not what she talked to you about.” 

“Hiding? I’m not hiding anything. No secrets here. Just a couple of good pals, not prying into each other’s lives, havin’ a good time.”

“I mean, we have no reason not to trust Pidge’s modifications. They’ve never failed us up to now. Plus, I’m pretty sure you were about to say secret.” Keith pulled Lance out of the alleyway and into the square. “So?”

“W-what part of secret do you not understand? Besides, it was nothing important.”

“Really?” Keith smiled innocently, but Lance was definitely not falling for that. “If it’s not that important, you can tell me, right? I thought we were friends, Lance.”

“I — what! No! I mean, yes, we’re friends, but being friends means you should also stop doing this...whatever you’re doing.” He could feel the heat rising in his face. “I mean, I’ll tell you when I feel like it, alright?”  _ Hopefully, never. As in, I get over these dumb feelings and we move on and everything is back to normal. _

“Okay,” Keith resigned.

_ That was too easy. He’s up to something, definitely. _ Lance was glad to drop the subject. “Where do we go now? Lead the way; I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Keith frowned as he held onto Lance’s forearm, pulling him past several merchants who were trying to sell what looked suspiciously like caterpillars. “Seriously? Your guide didn’t give you a tour or anything?”

“Nope. I couldn’t even find them, actually. How are you even supposed to pronounce…” Lance thought for a moment.  _ What were they called again? Jeez. _

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Allura literally read their names to us.”

“Yeah, well, my attention span is equivalent to that of a goldfish, so sorry if I didn’t catch it.”

“So how did you end up finding the chip anyway?” Keith asked, glancing around the square. They hadn’t found anyone yet, but the entire place was huge.

“Coincidence.” He didn’t feel like elaborating further, since it was kind of embarrassing anyway.  _ Where is Allura anyway? We probably aren’t more than a few minutes late...I hope she gets here soon. _

“Coincidence?” Keith prompted.

“Yeah, coincidence. I mean, I was asking around for my guide anyway—” The sound of loud footsteps suddenly filled the air. “Oh, what is that?”

“I dunno,” Keith said, standing on his tiptoes in an attempt to look over the towering Saindorians. “Can you see anything?”

Lance was about to reply that they should probably turn on their communicators before he was roughly grabbed by the arm and dragged through the crowd. “Hey, watch it!” he said, alarmed. An angry-looking Saindorian in guard uniform stared down at him. Instinctively, Lance reached for his bayard, trying to tug his arm away. “Let me go.”

“You are under arrest, sir, for…” The guard paused, tapping the surface of their wristband briefly. A hologram projected into the air, and they read off the list of offenses. “Stealing, public commotion, noise disturbances, running from the police, and...littering.”

“Keith!” he shouted, hoping the red paladin could hear him over the loud hissing from several Saindorians who were negotiating prices for their goods. Several of them were staring at him and the guard, who had drawn a glowing pair of handcuffs, similar to the ones Nyma had used to chain Lance to the tree a few weeks ago.  _ No, not again… _

The cuffs snapped over his wrists and the guard pulled him behind them. “You must remain silent,” the guard said harshly. “You are being taken in for the judgement.”

“Hey, is this about the food thing? Cause I’m really, really sorry about that, but I have somewhere to be and I really can’t miss it—”  _ Keith, please just turn around come on— _

“I said,” the Saindorian hissed, their hand hovering over a bar by their waist that seemed to buzz with electricity. “Stay quiet.”

Lance was rudely shoved further away from Keith, who had vanished from his sight. The guard directed him to the corner of the square, far, far away from where they were supposed to meet.

A short Saindorian dressed in brightly colored robes hissed scathingly at him, nodding aggressively when the guard asked a question. _ If only our helmet translators were voice activated. Actually, even if they were, the guard would probably just electrocute me because I spoke. _ He watched on as the Saindorian, who he recognized to be the merchant that he accidentally stole from before, waved their hands in the air angrily as they stormed over.

“You!” the merchant screeched in English. “How will you afford the food? I need payback for what you’ve done.”

Lance remained silent.  _ Don’t wanna get tased, no thank you. _

The guard thumped his back suddenly. “Answer them,” they barked.

“Uh. I, um, don’t know...I thought it was a free sample, I’m really sorry about that but I really need to get back to the ship and leave. You know, duty and stuff like that? Oh, yeah — I’m a paladin of Voltron.” He tugged fruitlessly at the cuffs, but they remained just as resilient as Nyma’s did.  _ Stupid alien handcuffs and their amazing tenacity. _

“Voltron?” If the alien merchant had eyebrows, they would’ve raised them. They turned to the guard next to them, murmuring something in Saindorian.

“Yes, Voltron. You know, big robot in the sky? We fight things, save the universe, stuff like that?”

The aliens chose to ignore him, conversing between themselves instead. Lance caught a few “Voltrons” thrown around, but couldn’t understand anything else.  _ Yeah, I’m not gonna learn anything from trying to understand these two. _ He stood on his toes and tried to look over the crowd of aliens, searching for the distinctive colors of their paladin uniforms. However, as far as he could see, there were only foreign aliens in their drab, long cloaks. The vast number of them in the square was giving him a headache.

“‘Scuse me, er,  _ esteemed one _ , I gotta get back to my crew. They’re waiting for me somewhere in this square for, like, paladin business? Could you untie me and let me go?”  _ If this works, I swear… _

The Saindorian merchant’s attitude suddenly changed. “I am very, very sorry for the inconvenience, sir.” They shuffled on their feet nervously, putting on a nervous grin. “You are free to go.”

What? “Oh. Uh, thanks, I guess.” Lance tapped his fingers on the side of his armor impatiently as he waited for the guard to disable the cuffs. He had only walked two steps before turning around and shouting, “If it’s not too much trouble, can I ask what Voltron has to do with this?”

The Saindorians had disappeared.

Lance frowned.  _ How’d they vanish so quickly? _ He thumbed the comms on his helmet and asked, “Hey, everyone, where are we meeting?”

“Lance?” Keith sounded alarmed. “Where the hell did you wander off to? I swear, I took my eyes off you for a second...”

“Wander? I got fucking arrested and you didn’t even notice!”

“Lance, language.” Shiro warned. “And what’s this about getting arrested? Also, we’re all right in the middle of the square, with the big glowing...fountain thing. Do you see it?”

Lance peeked over the aliens around him, identifying the giant spire with sparkling golden water sprinkling out of it.  _ I wish my boosters had fuel right now. It would be so much easier than going through the crowd.  _ Sighing, he gave an affirmative and pushed his way through the throng of aliens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> Q_Q i just wanna start writing the fluff already but...character development right


	11. Chapter 11

“Now that Lance is with us,” Allura said. “I have an announcement for all of you. There has been a change of plans — we’re being invited to a banquet, courtesy of the Saindorian nobility.” In a lower voice, she muttered, “Normally, I would decline these offers, but Xen’ix wants to discuss a treaty between Voltron and Saindor. They’re willing to send us supplies and resources as long as we come to their aid if the planet is ever attacked.”

“Do we have to talk to them? ‘Cause last time I tried to do the whole ‘diplomatic relations’ thing, we got kicked from the planet.” Pidge said. “I’m not very good with people. Or aliens, for that matter.”

“Probably nothing more than basic manners,” Allura said. “They’ll mostly be interested in talking with me. So long as you don’t ignore them when they’re speaking to you, we should be fine.”

Keith breathed a sigh of relief. _Whew, I’m glad that’s not an issue._

“Anything else?” Shiro asked.

“Oh, yes, one more thing.” She glanced around the square. “There will be a Saindorian attendant who should be arriving soon...they’re supposed to fit us with a new set of clothes. Formal wear for the event.”

Hunk raised a finger. “Uh, how are we going to change for this? Didn’t Coran say the atmosphere in this planet is unsuitable for humans?”

“Right. I forgot to mention: the event will be held in the royal ballroom of the castle, since there’s no way for our group to descend to the depths where their usual banquets are held. Our guide will be escorting us to the fitting rooms inside the castle, since your boosters are out of fuel. Speaking of — oh, hello, Neera!”

Keith looked up to see a tall Saindorian in elegant navy robes towering over them. “Welcome,” they said timidly. “My name is Neera, and I will be your guide for the fitting ceremony. Please, follow me this way…” They flicked their tail in the direction of the square’s corner.

The paladins walked behind them. Keith was glad that the crowd was parting for them, allowing the group to reach a hovering cube. It was engraved with several square markings. Neera pulled a set of keys off their neck, picking one oddly-shaped golden one and plugging it into a slot on the side of the machine. The markings glowed bright yellow and one face of the cube unfolded. _Woah. Is that supposed to be our ride?_

“There is enough space inside for us all. Right this way…” They readjusted their cloak nervously, motioning at the cube. Keith took the initiative and climbed in first.

It was surprisingly spacious, considering it didn’t look like much from the outside. There were two rows of seats and a small table in between them. On the ceiling, lights lined the corners of the room. Keith slid into the seat all the way at the end, waiting for the rest of the paladins and Neera to board. He ended up being seated next to Pidge, with Lance directly across from him. Neera was the last one to climb in, closing the door behind them.

“We will be there in approximately six incres,” Neera quipped, taking a thin tube from their pocket. It extended into a pen when it touched the walls of the cube, revealing a screen embedded inside. They tapped in a location in Saindorian and the machine hummed as its engines started.

“Incres?” Lance whispered. “What’s that?”

“Saindorian measuring units.” Shiro replied, and after being met with a look of confusion, he said, “My advisor told me. They also showed me — it’s equivalent to around four or five minutes.”

“Oh. Shouldn’t be too long, then.” Keith said. He reclined against the seat, hands behind his neck. He blinked tiredly, crossing his arms. _Maybe I can get a few minutes of rest while we’re waiting…_ His helmet knocked gently against the walls as the cube-car ascended, floating slowly into the air.

He was on the brink of nodding off when he felt someone prod his shoulder. Keith scrunched his nose, opening an eye. “Hm?”

“Lance wants to talk to you, dude.” Pidge said.

“Oh — oh, sorry. What did you say?”

Lance stared at him, biting his lip but not saying anything.

“Lance, are you just gonna stare at him?” The green paladin covered a smirk behind her hand. “You know, you can just do that while he’s sleeping. No need to wake him up.”

Lance sputtered. “What? No, I’m just thinking about how to, er, reword my question. Yeah. Cut me some slack, Pidge.”

“So?” Keith blinked. _Uh. What’s Pidge talking about?_ He decided not to press it. She said stuff he didn’t understand all the time — how was this different from any other?

“Uh...d-do you think they’re gonna make us dance at the banquet or whatever? Why else would we need formal wear, right?”

 _Why is he asking me?_ Keith opened his mouth to reply, but Neera was already beginning to speak.

“Lance, is it? To answer your inquiry, yes. There will be a formal ball at the end of the feast!” They clasped their hands together, smiling. “I am hoping that you will all enjoy it! We’ve been planning this all afternoon.”

“Is that all?” Keith murmured, yawning into his palm. He saw Lance nod fervently through lidded eyes and leaned back against the wall again. _How long has it been since I last slept for more than three hours? Jeez, I’m becoming like Pidge now._ His mind drifted aimlessly from the banquet in a few hours to remembering to give Coran the tools to hoping that no Saindorian royalty would try to offer him a dance, since he had no idea how to. The red paladin drifted off to sleep soon after.

 

_\----✄----_

 

“Now, I want you to put your arm like this—” Neera instructed, lifting their own. “Yes, perfect.”

Keith followed their example, extending his arm at an angle above him. The Saindorians did not use traditional measuring methods; some sort of native creature was employed to do the measuring for them. Keith wasn’t particularly keen to having the worm-like thing creeping up his arm, but Neera reassured him that he wouldn’t feel a thing.

The thin red worm looked a bit like a ribbon when it emerged from the edge of his sleeve. Neera picked it up gently and made some markings on the screen they had in front of them. Keith was still confused about how they managed to get those measurements from just staring at the worm, but didn’t say anything. The alien measuring units weren’t the same as any he knew — he suspected that if he did ask, he wouldn’t understand what they were saying anyway.

“That should be all we need,” Neera said excitedly. “Your formal wear will be made and completed before the occasion, where you will have time to switch it out. See you there!” They ushered Keith out of the room, calling in Hunk next for his fitting.

Keith gave Hunk a warning as he entered. “They’re gonna put a worm on you.” He mimicked a crawling motion with his index finger.

“What?” Hunk said, alarmed. “A worm?”

“Hunk, right this way, please,” Neera said, dragging him by the arm. He disappeared from view with a confused and vaguely terrified look on his face.

 _Whoops. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Well, at least he got a heads-up, right?_ He leaned against the wall, tapping it idly. _What are we gonna do during the few hours before the event starts? Pretty sure Allura closed off the training center until it’s over, but...doesn’t hurt to check, right?_

He was walking in the direction of the deck when he bumped into Coran. “Keith, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you — help me out with these decorations, won’t you?”

“Yeah, sure. What am I supposed to do?” Keith replied as Coran pushed him towards a dark room. When they stepped inside, lights along the borders lit up, revealing a long table. At the end of it, there was a small space and another doorway.

“So, we’re planning to put up some banners here,” he said, pointing upwards. “The ribbon we have is too long and I can’t find those snippers we had lying around.” Coran paused for a moment, thinking hard. “I’m not even sure where I left those…”

“Okay, where should I cut?” Keith asked, activating his bayard. _I’m not even sure if using a sword would be accurate, but whatever, right?_

“Right here.” Coran marked the spot on the banner with his finger.

Keith made one quick incision, cutting through the thin ribbon easily.

“Err...it looks a bit off, but nobody will notice if I…” Coran tied a small bow at the end of the banner, efficiently covering the frayed edges and the slight slant that Keith had cut it at. “There! Thank you, Keith. You should be joining your fellow paladins at the lounge. There are still a few things you need to get done…”

“Oh, okay. Thanks, Coran.” Keith deactivated his sword and left the room, heading in the direction of the lounge. _Guess there won’t be much time for me to train, even if the deck were open. I wonder what kind of stuff we’ll have to wear?_ His question was answered as soon as he entered the lounge.

“Oh, hey, Keith! Look at these jackets they made us, aren’t they awesome?” Lance grinned, straightening the lapels of his coat. At first glance, they seemed to be made of regular cloth, but from a different angle it seemed to shimmer in the light. _How does it even do that? Probably alien technology or something._

“It’s fascinating,” Pidge added from the corner, where she was inspecting the cloth closely. “At first, I thought it was just some kind of alien material, but it looks like there are really, _really_ tiny...scales? Something like that. They’re embedded in the material though, and Neera told me that’s what makes the jackets look different depending on the lighting! They also said something about there being a surprise when there isn’t any light in the room, I’m hoping we’ll get to see that later…”

“Yeah, sure, the science stuff’s cool, but don’t you think it looks good on me?” Lance said, inspecting himself in the mirror nearby.

“Yeah, Lance, it really _brings out your eyes_ ,” Pidge said.

“Aw, thank you, Pidge!” Lance beamed, completely missing the sarcasm in her voice.

“You look nice, Lance,” Keith said truthfully.

“W-wh-uh, thank you, Keith,” Lance stuttered.

Keith frowned. “But you’re doing your tie wrong. It definitely _shouldn’t_ look like a lariat loop.” He pointed to the monstrosity of a knot that Lance had managed to make out of his tie.

“A larry _what_?” Lance raised his eyebrows in confusion.

“A lariat loop,” Keith said, walking over to fix it. “It’s a type of knot. Hasn’t anyone taught you how to tie a tie before? We had that dance at the Garrison, what did you do for that?”

Lance looked mortified. “Hunk helped me out that time. He told me how to do it too, but I guess I remembered wrong.” He stood stiffly as Keith undid the knot in his tie, a blush rising on his face.

“This is embarrassing to watch,” Pidge grumbled under her breath, a palm to her forehead.

“There,” Keith said, tugging the tie into place.

“T-thanks.” Lance’s eyes darted from left to right before he said, “Your, uh, suit is on the desk there. Changing rooms to the left. I-I think I hear someone calling, I gotta go, see you at the dinner!” Lance stepped away from Keith promptly and darted out of the door, his coattails flying behind him.

 _What’s his issue?_ Keith stared at the doorway. He didn’t realize he had actually spoken aloud until Pidge responded.

“You’re embarrassing him, dude,” she said frankly.

Keith brought his hands up in a shrug. “What did I do?”

“You don’t know?” Pidge looked up incredulously. “Hasn’t he told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

“Jesus christ, you guys are both...” she sighed. ”You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Soon enough? Find out what?” Keith squinted in suspicion. “Is this part of your prank?”

Pidge sniggered. “You’re still hung up on that? Keith, there isn’t any prank. I’m serious.” She kicked back, resting her shoes on the table. “Just think about how Lance has been acting around you, yeah?”

“Uhh...okay?” Keith wasn’t completely sure he believed her, but went to pick up his formalwear from the table. “Just asking, when am I finding out about this…” He made a circular motion with his hands. “Whatever this is?”

“I dunno. But if it goes on for too long,” she said, twirling a pen between her fingers. _Where did she get that from?_ “I guess I’ll just tell you.”

 _Wow, that’s not vague at all._ “Are Shiro and Hunk in on this too?”

“My lips are sealed.” Pidge smiled slyly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> oh o h O lemme know what you guys think!! comments are always appreciated :D


	12. Chapter 12

“Lance, you can’t just _not_ go to the banquet,” Hunk reasoned. “We have a responsibility to show up. Besides, even if you avoid Keith by ditching this, you can’t avoid him forever.”

“I can try,” Lance groaned into arms. “Nobody will know. Just tell them I came down with a cold or something. Blame it on the mudwater.”

“C’mon, we both know that Allura won’t believe you, considering you were perfectly fine this afternoon. Besides,” Hunk said, reaching down to straighten out Lance’s jacket. “You’re messing up your cool jacket.”

Lance said nothing in reply, but pulled his shimmery jacket tighter around his shoulders instead. He lifted his head from the table, shooting Hunk a dejected look.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad, Lance. Knowing Keith…” Hunk trailed off awkwardly, clearing his throat. “How about this — you stay for at least the dinner, alright? After that, we can ditch the party and go somewhere else to check out some of the loot I picked up at the marketplace today. How’s that?”

Lance sighed, pushing himself off the table slowly. “I guess. Just the dinner though.” _I’ll just sit far, far away from Keith, make minimal conversation, and leave as soon as we can. Ugh, and I was looking forward to loosening up today too, but now I’ve just made things awkward. Again._

Hunk grinned, squeezing Lance in one of his signature death hugs. “It’ll be fine! You’re gonna be fine, Lance. Besides, you’ve put yourself in _way_ more uncomfortable situations in the past.”

“Yeah, but I always pulled embarrassing shit at the end of the year. You know, where if I did screw up, I could put it all behind me and avoid that person forever. This is different.” _Very, very different._

Hunk shrugged. “Fair enough.” He looked down to the timepiece on his wrist, eyes widening in alarm when he saw it. “We should get going. Wouldn’t wanna miss the opening speech.”

 _I wouldn’t mind missing the whole event, but I guess._ Lance kept his thoughts to himself as he walked towards the ballroom, listening to Hunk talk with occasional interjections.

“Lance, Hunk, you’re here!” Coran waved to them excitedly at the door. He was wearing a suit made of similar material as the rest of the paladins, except his glimmered with amber. As they neared, Coran twisted his arm, grinning ecstatically. “Look, they made mine to match my moustache. Isn’t that awesome?”

Hunk smiled encouragingly. “Looks great, Coran.” Lance, however, wasn’t even close to as spirited as he usually was. He gave a half-hearted nod.

Coran picked up on it immediately. “Something wrong, Lance?”

 _Am I being that obvious?_ Lance shook his head quickly. “Nope. I’m just, uh, feeling a bit tired.” _Don’t want Coran to have to worry about me too._

“Really? Are you feeling alright?” The Altean stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I can start up the healing pods again once I get that pipe fixed if you want…”

“Nah, I’m good, Coran. Seriously.” Lance attempted a weak smile. “I think I’ll just take an early break, y’know? I think all this diplomacy stuff is getting to me.”

“Alright. Well, hopefully that lets up soon,” Coran said. “Wouldn’t want to miss the dance, no?” His voice lowered to a hushed whisper. “The Saindorians throw a mean party. Trust me.”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Yeah, hopefully.”

“We should get going soon,” Hunk interrupted. “I think we’re supposed to be part of the opening speech or something?” His gaze flickered over to the center stage, where a few Saindorains were conversing with Allura. “Looks like everyone’s meeting up there, so see ya later, Coran!”

“Oh, yes, of course. Feel better, Lance.” He waved them off, returning to greeting the next guest at the doors.

_Just a little longer before I can go. We probably won’t have to say more than a few words on stage, which is fine, and then I can go find a table in the corner and eat quickly and then leave—_

“Wait a minute, Lance,” Hunk said after they neared the stage. The yellow paladin furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, glancing between Lance and the other paladins on stage. “You’re missing something.”

“What?” Lance asked, startled. “Missing what?”

“Your boutonniere! You left it on the table back in that room…” Hunk glanced at his watch again. “We need to get it!”

“Oh, _shit._ ” Lance tapped his friend’s arm rapidly. “How much longer before it starts?”

“Four...no, five minutes. C’mon, you have time if you run! Go! I’ll cover for you.” Hunk pushed him.

    “You’re the best, Hunk!” Lance shouted as he picked up speed, racing down the hallways as if he were being chased by an entire Galra fleet.

_Was it this hallway? I think so...and which room was it? Why aren’t any of these rooms numbered or whatever? And all the doors are closed, so I can’t even peek inside...I think it was in the middle of this hallway, but which door is it? How much time do I have left before it starts?_

He skidded to a halt in front of the door, nearly crashing into it as the motion sensors detected his presence a few seconds later. _Nope. Nothing in here._ Lance stuck his head in the next one, peeking around. _Not this one either…_

The last entrance finally produced results — the cobalt flower he had been looking for lay on the table. Lance grabbed it hastily, jogging back the way he came as he tried to pin it to his jacket. The flower hung off him sadly, but he had no time to fix it. _C’mon, please, tell me I’m not late…_

He squeezed through the doors just as they began closing, rushing past the tables of royal Saindorians to his place on the stage. Breath heaving, he gave an apologetic look to Allura and pointed to the flower on his chest, who was giving him a murderous glare.

“Er, welcome, welcome, Saindorians and honored guests alike!” The host said with an air of false cheeriness, tugging at their collar anxiously. “We are glad everyone can be here with us today. This banquet is being held in honor of the legendary defending paladins of Voltron!”

 _Legendary defending paladins?_ Lance tried to keep a straight face, hiding a smile behind his fist. To his left, Pidge was snorting quietly and even Shiro couldn’t suppress a grin. The host seemed alarmed by their reaction but kept their composure, closing off their speech at a much faster pace than before.

Xen’ix picked up after they were finished, shouting, “Enjoy the cuisine, sampled from several exotic planets in this system and beyond. _Arguinich!_ ” The Saindorian crowd repeated the phrase equally as enthusiastically, cheering for the feast and for the paladins.

“Honored guests,” a Saindorian in formal wear spoke, motioning to a table on an elevated platform. “To your table.”

Lance gulped but trailed behind the rest of the group anyway. _Wait, we get our own table? I mean, that makes sense, but how am I gonna avoid Keith now if there are barely ten people at this table?_ He snuck a glance at said red paladin, trying not to pay attention to how well his tie suited him or...wait, was that a _ponytail?_ _God, what did I do to deserve this?_ He forced his gaze to someone else, but Hunk was conversing with the servant about the texture of their cloth and Allura and Shiro had fallen back to talk privately. Pidge, however, was nearby and she only needed to glance briefly between Lance’s embarrassed look and Keith before she made the connection.

“Hey, Keith,” she said, a grin pulling at the corners of her face.

Lance glared at her, eyes widening. “No,” he mouthed, “Don’t you fucking dare.” He still hadn’t forgiven her for what happened on the weird Saindorian cube thing. He wasn’t staring! And even if he was, it wasn’t until Pidge had pointed it out. No _way_ he would’ve been caught (keyword: caught) staring at the sleeping Keith

 _Oh, who am I kidding._ Lance pretended to inspect the intricate designs on the chairs as Pidge commented, “Your hair looks different.”

“O-oh. Uh, thanks?” Keith said, snapping out of his daze. He managed a small smile, but still seemed distracted. _I wonder what he’s thinking about._

Pidge continued. “It's nice. I’m sure Lance would agree, would—” She was silenced by Lance’s palm clapping over her mouth. _Why me._

“Huh? What did you say?” Keith looked even more confused as he watched Lance scuffle briefly with Pidge.

“Nothing! Nothing,” Lance replied quickly. Keith quirked his eyebrows, but turned back to follow the servant. “You’re such an asshole,” Lance huffed under his breath to Pidge, his hold on her loosening significantly when she jabbed the inside of his elbow.

“Just doing you a favor,” she retorted, dusting off her jacket. “Not my fault you can’t talk to your crus—”

“Nope. You’re banned from speaking for the rest of the week, no, year.”

“Thank you,” she said to the Saindorian who had pulled out a chair for her. To Lance, who had taken the seat next to her, she whispered, “You’ll be thanking me later when you two get together.”

Lance kicked her underneath the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> : ^ )
> 
>  
> 
> ((sorry about the reupload! i made a mistake last time :c))


	13. Chapter 13

Keith felt distant the whole dinner, sipping the glass of water provided. The Saindorian servants around them seemed eager to take whatever orders they had, but one look at the menu made Keith hesitant to try ordering anything. If by some miracle he actually managed to pronounce the entrees correctly, he had no idea what they tasted like and didn’t want to disrespect the aliens by throwing out whatever he didn’t like. He let Allura and Shiro fuss over what to order.  _ I don’t really mind what we get. _

His mind was currently preoccupied with that cryptically vague thing Pidge had said before. Sure, he wasn’t the most perceptive person, but the more he thought about it…

_ Lance  _ has  _ been acting strange lately. Hunk and Pidge already told me that though, but I still can’t figure out why? He doesn’t seem to want to talk to me about it either. I guess I should just wait for Pidge to say something, because she’ll tell me eventually right?  _ He sighed impatiently.

“Keith, do you think we should order the pichilynder or the Saindorian special?” Shiro asked him, showing him the menu.

The menu lacked visuals, but had small codes next to the food items that could be scanned to produce an image. Shiro waved a Saindorian over, pointing at the two items he had indicated. The alien cheerfully drew a hollow bar from their side. A quick scan later, two holographic images projected into the air.

“So?” Shiro asked.

“Uhh…” Keith glanced from one food to another. The pichi-whatever reminded him of spring rolls, if spring rolls were bright purple and glowed. Even so, it looked better than the Saindorian special, which resembled a conglomerate of lumpy vegetables and thick orange sauce. “Let’s get the pichi…”

“Pichilynder? We’ll take one of those.” Shiro said brightly to the servant, who took his menu and bowed, scampering off to the kitchens.

“Thanks,” Keith murmured. Shiro smiled knowingly, giving Keith a light pat on the back before returning to his conversation with Allura.

Keith drummed his fingers against the tablecloth mindlessly, his cheek resting against his palm. He still felt fidgety.  _ Maybe I should leave the party early. I mean, there isn’t much for us to do here anyway, as of now. Shiro’s the best diplomat out of the five of us, and even he’s not that great at it.  _ He nudged Pidge, who seemed to be deeply focused on taking apart one of the Saindorian scanners underneath the table, where Shiro’s disapproving looks wouldn’t wander. Keith stopped bothering to wonder where she got all this stuff.

“Hey, do you wanna ditch this party early?” he whispered, hoping that Shiro didn’t overhear him. A quick glance to his right confirmed that Shiro was too distracted to listen.

“Wish I could,” she replied gloomily, pulling a tiny metal tool out of her jacket pocket. “The merchant I met today wants me to show them how to use some of the stuff we sold them. Apparently they’re some kind of...royal merchant? I have no idea why else they would be at this party. Allura wants me to so we can form a ‘better bond—’ She made air quotes with her fingers. “—with our new allies.”  

“Oh. Have fun, I guess.” Keith tried not to sound too dejected.  _ Guess I’ll just stop by the training deck or something.  _ An idea suddenly struck him.  _ I should ask Coran where he put those disks I bought today.  _ “Hey, Pidge, d’you know where you put that music player? I wanna try out some of the stuff I got today at the market.”

“Yeah, gimme a second.” Pidge tucked the dismantled scanner into her pocket, pulling a pen from it and scribbling something on a napkin. “Here. I’m pretty sure it should be in this room, but if it isn’t, check this one.” There were two crudely drawn diagrams on the paper, both in the center basement sector of the ship. Keith thanked her, slipping the paper into his pocket.

_ Maybe I’ll ask Lance to come along, _ Keith thought as the Saindorian servant who took their order arrived with a plateful of pichilynder.  _ He’d probably appreciate it, right? _

The food smelled delicious and was accompanied by a tiny container of sauce. The pichilynder literally  _ glowed _ , even in the brightly lit room. Although it was strangely colored, the smell was enough to make Keith’s mouth water, and he eagerly reached forward to scoop one with his spork. It crunched delightfully when he bit into it, flavor rushing through his taste buds.  _ Holy shit, this is amazing. _

“Try it with this,” Shiro suggested, biting into one that was generously covered in lavender sauce. “Mmm!”

Keith took his advice, dipping the other end of his pichilynder into the sauce. It added a sweet and sour taste and complimented the dry rolls nicely. Keith was no food connoisseur like Hunk or Coran were, but even he could appreciate how much effort the Saindorians put into making it.

Before he knew it, the plate of glowing rolls had vanished. The servant whisked it away, replacing it with a steaming bowl of clear soup that was evenly distributed between the guests at the table. Some sort of strange vegetable was floating in it, but the aromatic smell it gave off was amazingly sweet.

As Keith took small sips of the soup, he glanced around the table quickly. Pidge was putting the scanner back together, apparently satisfied with what she learned. Shiro was trying out a little bit of every dish, scooping samples into his plate. Next to him, Allura was busy discussing something with Xen’ix, a hologram floating in the air between them. Keith squinted, trying to make out the letters, but they were not only alien but also projected backwards from his view. Giving up, he glanced across the table, where Coran was chatting with Hunk, his fingers pointing out various ingredients in the soup that he recognized. Everyone seemed to be busy with something...except Lance.

The blue paladin stared blankly at the wall, his plate empty. The soup he was served sat to the side, untouched. He seemed extremely distracted by something.  _ I wonder if it’s the same thing that Pidge was talking about. Probably, right? Why wouldn’t it be? _

He contemplated as he drained the bowl, his stomach already feeling heavy even though he barely had anything. His diet had never really been the same ever since he got booted from the Garrison and the Saindorian foods seemed to be extremely filling for such small amounts. Keith was tempted to leave after the next plate was served.  _ Do Saindorians even have table etiquette? _

Unfortunately, Keith didn’t want to risk trying the next dish, although it smelled just as good as the last few had been. The concoction reminded him of the humid swampland they had visited a while ago. Puke green and speckled with tiny red rocks, Keith was reluctant to go near it no matter how sweet it smelled.

Allura encouraged him to take some. “This is made from the finest Saindorian trillyweeds! The last time I visited here, they didn’t make it nearly as good as it is now. This is an expensive delicacy — try it!” She took a large scoop, the watery paste slopping into her plate. “It might not have the most appealing look, but trust me…”

“Uh, I’m good,” Keith said, slowly pushing the bowl along. “Maybe later, I think I’m gonna take a break now.” He stood tentatively, gesturing to the entrance. “Taking a walk. I’m feeling full.”

He awkwardly pushed in his seat, turning stiffly and walking past the other tables.  _ Now’s a good time to go check out these rooms.  _ He pulled the folded napkin from his pocket, consulting his mental image of the castle. He’d never explored the lower decks before, now that he thought about it.

Following Pidge’s crudely drawn map, he reached the elevators and entered, descending to the basement floor. The doors opened with a hiss, motion sensored lights flickering on. It was obvious that this part of the castle hadn’t been cleaned in a long time — the dust still retained clear imprints of Pidge’s footprints, probably when she came down here to store all that stuff away. The hallways were much narrower than Keith was used to and many of the rooms he walked past were blocked off with metal bars, most of which were badly rusted. There was a low, constant hum in the air, a background soundtrack to the otherwise silent area.  _ No wonder nobody comes here. It’s so eerily creepy. _

He turned a corner, squinting to read Pidge’s drawing in the dim light.  _ Turn left at the end of this hallway, and… _ The section he arrived at ended in a dead end, matching what Pidge had shown.  _ Third room from the right. _

He approached the room hesitantly. As he neared it, the sensors kicked in and the doors slid open with a puff of dust. It was dark, but Keith could see some of the things near the entrance with the lights from the hallway. The music player was tightly wedged between a stack of boxes and a strange pulsing machine. Keith tugged at it with some effort.  _ How did Pidge even fit this here? _ He nearly fell when the player finally yanked out, huffing.  _ Finally. _

Keith turned, taking one more glance back at the contents of the room.  _ Wonder what else is in this place. _ He made a mental note to check back here some other time — there were probably countless things hidden in this room alone, not to mention the rest of the basement floor.

That was when he heard the door hiss shut behind him, bathing the room in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here comes that Suspense™ 
> 
> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :^)
> 
> warning: there is a scene in this chapter where keith panics! if you would rather avoid reading it, it begins with "He looked around and..." and ends at "Keith nodded and dropped to..."
> 
> ((i'M SO SORRY FOR THE SLOW BURN, IT'S GOING TO GET BETTER SOON I PROMISE))

Lance sipped the drink distractedly, leaning back against the plush seats in the hall. Although he had been trying to avoid Keith all dinner, he was now tempted to follow in his path and leave as well. The dinner was just so _boring._ At first, he had been halfheartedly eavesdropping on Allura’s diplomatic plans, but stopped when she and Xen’ix seamlessly transitioned from English to Saindorian. Hunk had asked Lance to swap places with him so he and Pidge could tinkle with the weird shit she had been picking at all dinner. And although he looked up to him as both a pilot and leader, it was difficult to keep a casual conversation with Shiro. _Guess I’ll look around. There’s nothing to do here._

He tapped Hunk on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go check out some stuff,” Lance said vaguely. “Coran, where’d you put the things we got today?”

“I left everything in the lounge on the third floor,” Coran said. “Everything’s unsorted though — you’ll need to figure out which things are yours.”

“Thanks.” The blue paladin was turning to leave when Pidge grabbed him by the sleeve. “Hm?”

“If you’re looking to listen to some of the disks we got today, Keith should have the record player.” She grinned, pushing up her glasses. “If you can’t find him around, he’s probably still in the basement. Middle section, there’s a room. Just look around, won’t you?”

Lance gave her an exasperated look. “You don’t need to try to get us together,” he hissed. “I’ll deal with it myself.”

Her eyes widened, palms up. “I didn’t say anything.”

Lance rolled his eyes and walked away, hands stuffed in pockets. _Whatever. Just ignore her, Lance._ He strolled out the doors as inconspicuously as possible, although it wasn’t exactly difficult to spot one of the “esteemed guests” speedwalking past. The Saindorians near the entrance seemed to be too invested in their own conversation, allowing him to slip by.

 _Now what? I guess I’ll go to the lounge and get those disks. Unless Keith already got them._ When he entered, the merchandise they bought was teetering in a perfectly balanced pile on the table. As precisely as possible, Lance rearranged the items so they weren’t on the verge of falling off, grabbing the disks and slipping them into his pocket when he found them.

He traced his steps back to the banquet, but Keith was nowhere to be found. The training deck was empty, as was Keith’s room. _Guess he’s still in the basement. It’s been forever though — what’s taking him so long?_

Lance had only been to the basement one time to check the locks on a room per Allura’s request. The place creeped him out. The castle, although mysterious on its own, was supposed to be brightly lit and welcome-ish and should only have weird noises coming from locked rooms _sometimes._ Lance was sure something was hiding down there and was reluctant to return.

 _The things I’ll do for Keith,_ he thought before realizing exactly what had just crossed his mind. _Shit. Well, I’m glad we haven’t done mind-melding exercises in a while._

The elevator groaned as he stepped in, shakily descending to the basement floor. _Is that...screaming?_ He shuddered, accrediting the strange shrieks to the elevator’s age. _This is exact reason why I prefer taking the stairs. But I don’t think there are any to the basement anyway...I’ll have to double-check with a map of the castle later._

Lance tapped his feet nervously, his fingers brushing against the fabric of his pocket. After what seemed like an eternity, the doors finally slid open with a hiss. The corridor was dark, but the motion sensored lights kicked in as he began walking, flickering slightly from lack of use. _Pidge said the room was really close to the elevator...something about a central hallway..._

Lance couldn’t see anything beyond the darkness and was forced to keep an eye out as he went along. The creaky noises and high pitched whistles he remembered echoed throughout the hallways.

“Keith?” he called, his voice wavering. There was no reply. _Maybe he’s like, really caught up in looking for that player or something. Or I’m too far. Either way…_

A corner appeared suddenly in front of him. He turned sharply, brushing the walls. _One of these doors has to open, right? Some of the doors in the other hallway are motion sensored too, and Pidge would’ve told me if I needed a key to get inside. But which one?_

He heard a rustling noise and froze, fear creeping up his back like a clammy hand. Lance didn’t dare turn around. _Nothing’s behind you but don’t look back, just keep walking, keep walking…_

Somehow, he was able to get his feet to inch forward again. He listened closely, but the noises from before seemed to have vanished. Even the gentle humming of the machines had faded, left behind in the other corridor.

Lance was nearing the end of the passage when he heard a hissing noise. It lasted for barely a second and Lance whirled around to find the source, forgetting his fear from before. _Did a door get jammed?_

Lance crouched, shuffling along the doors as he searched for the opening. To his surprise, his guess was right. One of the doors was caught at an awkward angle, as if it was about to close and froze halfway. Cold drafts drifted from the opening.

Tentatively, he slid a hand underneath the opening, ignoring the numbness in his fingers. _Mom always told me not to touch stuff I didn’t know about, but here I am, five million light years from Earth, putting my hand underneath this suspicious door into a suspicious room that I can’t see…_

Something reached out and tugged the tips of his fingers and Lance _shrieked._ He yanked back his fingers, praying to all the gods out there that they would still be intact. He was in the process of inspecting his nails when he heard something from inside.

“L-Lance?” a shaky voice asked.

He froze. _Is that Keith? But Keith doesn’t...he’d never sound like that. But who else would it be, and who else would know my name — oh alright, I should just respond..._

“Keith? You there?” He heard an affirmative grunt from inside. _Oh, shit. He’s stuck in there? Jesus christ…_ “Hey, Keith, just stay here, alright? I’ll get you out of there. I’ll figure something out, just stay put, alright?”

He scrambled to his feet unceremoniously, racing past the hallway. _There’s gotta be something here, something that I can use — as a lever maybe — to get Keith out of there, come on, something…_ He approached a room he had passed earlier, pressing his palm to the door. After a brief pause, the door slid up, allowing him inside. He took a quick peek around the room, looking for something sturdy. Nothing.

The next room he checked had a long metal bar that Lance hoped was strong enough. He brought it back as quickly as possible, sprinting back the way he came with the bar wobbling in his arms. “Keith, where are you?”

“Here.”

“Okay, I’m gonna put something under the door and try to wrench it up, alright? Is there space?”

“Not much.” Lance heard some shuffling around, then the sound of something falling and a wince of pain.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I, uh, bumped into something.” A brief pause. “Okay.” His voice sounded less shaky than before, more like the Keith he was used to.

Lance wedged the bar underneath and tried to pry the door open. It inched open slowly, the metal screeching unpleasantly. _Just a little more…_ He was sweating from the effort and the chilly wind did nothing but turn his sweat ice cold. The formal jackets weren’t designed for warmth, obviously. _And Keith’s been there for what? Almost an hour? How long has it been since he left?_

His arms were starting to get sore by the time he had wrenched the opening large enough to crawl underneath. The room was still extremely dark, despite the fact that the lights in the hallway were streaming in. Lance moved the bar out of the way and tried to wriggle inside, ending up in a slightly wormlike position as he squeezed under.

“Keith?” Lance blinked, eyes adjusting to the darkness. He looked around and spotted someone huddled in the corner, shuddering. _Oh, shit._ “Keith, um, it’s okay, I got you,” Lance reassured, scrambling into the room and rushing over, even though there wasn’t much space to move at all. He tripped over the various assortment of things on the floor, most of which were obscured by shadow. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” The blue paladin felt around for Keith’s shoulder and put his arm around him.

“You’re gonna be fine, it’s alright,” he soothed, steadying Keith with his hand. In the darkness, Keith gave a barely perceptible nod, rising shakily. His breath was quick, fingers shaking so hard he could barely grip the thin device in his hands. Lance took it and urged him to go first. Keith’s steps were unsteady, but they managed to cross over to the door without too much trouble.

“You go first. I’ll be right behind you.”

Keith nodded and dropped to his stomach, worming out. Lance followed as soon as he could, not wanting to leave Keith alone for too long. Emerging clumsily from underneath the door, he dusted off his sleeves, conscious of Keith’s eyes on him.

“You...you okay?” Lance looked up, knowing he really wasn’t.

Keith nodded mutely, eyes flitting away immediately. He looked so vulnerable from where Lance stood — eyes darting around nervously, shoulders hunched and arms crossed. His face was pale and shivers racked his body. Lance felt a pang of pity and a strong urge to give him a hug. Instead, he walked over and motioned for Keith to follow, hesitantly putting a totally friendly arm on the other boy’s shoulder. “The elevator’s down this way.” After a moment’s pause, he asked, “Do you wanna talk about what happened?”

Keith looked a little on the fence about it and Lance quickly added, “I mean, you don’t need to if you don’t want to, but like, I want to help you and I hope I’m not coming off as overbearing but...”

The look on Keith’s face made his stomach churn. _Ah. Shit, I’ve done it now. Well, at least I told him, right? Get it over with._ He didn’t meet Keith’s eyes, not until Keith nudged him and he looked up in surprise. _Huh?_

“Thanks, Lance. Seriously.” He glanced up at Lance through his eyelashes, managing a small smile. “I’m not...I’ll tell you later, alright? You’re right, we should be getting back up.”

Lance felt like his face was burning up and forced himself to look away, staring at the thin layer of dust resting on Keith’s shoulders, at his ruffled hair at his one upturned collar, pressing up against his neck. _Later?_ Stiffly, he nodded and began walking, unsure of what he would say if he opened his mouth. Keith looked a bit startled but complied. They made their way over to the elevator without speaking.

The elevator _pinged_ , doors sliding open. Lance held back, waiting for Keith to enter first, but it appeared that both of them had the same idea. Lance opened his mouth to say something, but closed it after rethinking. After a pause, he stepped forward just as Keith did, knocking shoulders. “Ow, sorry.”

“Oh, it’s alright. It was...my bad, yeah…”

Lance gulped, hand brushing the back of his neck. They rode out the rest of the ride in silence. _I’m not gonna look at him._ Still, he could feel Keith’s gaze dart over to him periodically, soft and tired. He looked weary from the corner of Lance’s vision. _Being down there must’ve been stressful. He should just rest early; there’s no point in going back to the ball if he isn’t feeling well. I’m sure everyone would agree._

The ride up seemed to take an agonizingly long time, but at least the elevator was significantly less creaky than it was on the way down. The fear Lance felt before seemed to have subsided — whether it was because the elevator was no longer making weird sounds or because Keith was there with him, he couldn’t tell. Finally, the lift groaned to a stop, shuddered, and opened.

They had barely started down the hallway to the ball when Lance heard an ear-piercing shriek, followed by what sounded like several fragile things breaking. His eyes darted to meet Keith’s, who seemed equally as confused as he was. _What was that? We should go check it out — but we don’t have our bayards? Still, there isn’t enough time to grab them, and it’s better if we’re together — what if it’s a Galra attack! Better start running._ Keith nodded as if he could hear his thoughts. Grabbing his arm, Lance rushed down the halls, his heart pounding in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr: [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)  
> lmk how i'm doing!! :> comments are always appreciated


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE
> 
> i've been super busy w/ school + was hit with writer's block at literally the worst time; hopefully this update makes up for it!

Keith struggled to keep up with Lance’s longer strides as they ran towards the banquet, his heart crawling in his throat. The comfort he felt before around Lance had faded, replaced by a heightened sense of the anxiety he felt before. They weren’t fit to take a Galra fleet, not in their current situation and especially without their bayards.

They were unbelievably unprepared. _We should’ve predicted this, now that we’ve let our guard down we’re gonna be done for, and I haven’t even told Lance—_ “Huh?”

The screams had suddenly cut off, filling the halls with deafening silence. He couldn’t hear anything from the hall, which sent liquid _fear fear fear_ coursing through his veins. He felt Lance’s grip on his arm tighten. _What happened to them — they stopped? Are they dead? PidgeShiroHunk oh god —_

Keith’s thoughts were interrupted once again by what sounded like...was that _applause?_ They rounded the corner and burst through the doors, greeted by whoops of appreciation from the Saindorians and energetic clapping from the paladin table. _What?_

He surveyed the scene: Allura was standing up on the stage with Xen’ix, looking slightly flustered. Around them, something that looked like tiny jewels was scattered over two podiums. On closer inspection, Keith realized they were pieces of colored glass. His confusion was amplified when the host appeared out of nowhere, congratulating Allura on her “spectacular voice.”

Lance looked equally as befuddled as he felt. _Guess it’s some Saindorian thing. Screaming?_ They approached the table together with Lance looking vaguely uncomfortable. Keith realized he was still holding onto the blue paladin’s sleeve and let go, his face slightly red. He mumbled something along the lines of “sorry, I forgot,” and returned to his seat. Pidge stared at him with a quirked eyebrow, her head tilted a little. As he sank into the plush, Pidge whispered to him, “Where were you? You guys were gone for a _long_ time.”

“I was, uh, exploring.” Keith didn’t feel like explaining, even though Pidge’s look showed that she didn’t really believe him. Thankfully, she dropped the subject, pointing to the front stage.

The host was speaking into the microphone, their voice deep and booming. “Now, the event we have all been waiting for.” They gestured grandly in front of them. Keith’s eyes widened in surprise as he felt the floor _moving_ underneath him, the tables shifting to the edge of the room to clear up space for the dance. “The grand ball! Please, gather around, we must begin immediately. Refreshments and delicacies will continue being served to the side. Enjoy!” They ended off cheerfully, handing the microphone to Allura.

“Now, a note for my paladins,” she said airily. “I’d appreciate if _some of us_ —” She sent a pointed look in Keith’s direction. “—didn’t wander off while our guests are treating us to such a fantastic celebration.”

Keith smiled apologetically, slumping against the seat once Allura stepped off the platform. “Dammit,” he muttered.

Shiro overheard him and gave him a light clap on the back. “Hey, c’mon, it won’t be _that_ bad. Loosen up. Did you go to the semi-formal at the Garrison last year?”

Keith pouted. “No.”

“I figured. When was the last time you actually went to something _fun_ without me dragging you there?” After a pause, Shiro added, “Training doesn’t count and neither does joyriding the Garrison aircraft in the middle of the night.”

“Aw, c’mon, Shiro! Flying’s fun!”

Shiro looked unamused. “ _Keith._ ”

He raised his hands in defeat. “Alright, alright, I’ll _dance_ or whatever. But you owe me.”

Shiro smiled kindly. He stood, straightening his tie. “I’ve got some stuff to, er, do. Seriously, Keith, try to have fun, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Keith waved him off, watching as Shiro walked up to Allura, asking her something with a bashful expression. _Stuff to do, huh? He could’ve just said “ask Allura to dance.”_

Keith redirected his attention back to the table. Even Pidge had gotten up, leaving her trinkets and a long list from the royal merchant strewn on the table. He looked around but couldn’t see her anywhere. _That’s the second time today, Pidge._ As much as he preferred sitting in his chair, arms crossed, for the next three hours, Keith knew his attitude wouldn’t go unnoticed by Allura. Reluctantly, he stood, forcing himself to move mechanically to the dance floor. _I mean, I’m a paladin of Voltron, right? Someone’s bound to strike up a conversation._ With this somewhat reassuring thought, Keith poured himself a drink and strode over to the benches near the dance floor. Around him, Saindorians danced and chatted, their hissing filling his ears uncomfortably. He took a sip, leaning against the wall.

Luckily, he didn’t have to stay like that for long. Keith spotted Hunk soon after, who waved him over to where he and Lance were talking. “Hey, Keith!”

Lance seemed a little alarmed. _Maybe I’m just overthinking it. Probably._ “Hi,” Keith replied mildly. “What are you guys doing?”

“Well, we were going to dance,” Hunk said. “But we’re still looking for someone to dance with. What about you, Keith?”

“Dunno.” He looked down at the rose colored water, swirling it around in the cup. “What was that stuff with Xen’ix before? You know, the screaming.”

“That? Apparently it was some Saindorian custom thing. The host gave us a demonstration and asked if anyone from our group would like to try.” Hunk rubbed the back of his neck. “We were all kinda reluctant about it, but Allura said she had experience with it from diplomatic missions in the past. I guess she did pretty well.”

“She seemed to know what she was doing,” Keith noted.

“Of course she did, it’s Allura you’re talking about!” Lance sighed dreamily. “What doesn’t she know how to do?”

Hunk shot him a strange look. “Dance, apparently. Look, she and Shiro are practically _waddling_ around each other.”

Keith glanced over to where the two in question were circling each other, not quite looking at each other. He couldn’t suppress a chuckle when Shiro accidentally stepped on Allura’s shoes, nearly jumping in shock and apologizing profusely.

“Still better than us during the semi,” Hunk laughed, taking a couple of sweet-smelling bars from the table nearby. He offered one to Keith, who politely declined. _Wait, Lance and Hunk went to the semi formal together? Oh._

“That’s only cause you kept stepping on my feet!” Lance exclaimed.

“Yeah, but you weren’t paying attention to me. Too busy looking a—”

“Now’s not the time to get into my embarrassing and _private_ crush history.” Lance waved him off, taking a long gulp from his cup.

“Speaking of dance...Lance, why don’t you ask Keith to?” Hunk had a mischievous grin on his face.

“Uh, what?” Lance choked after spluttering into his drink. “How about, uh—”

“I wouldn’t mind.” Keith said. _Why not? I mean, it’s not like we’re going to do anything else here anyway, right?_ “Fair warning, I’ve never danced before.”

“Really?” Lance sounded surprised. “Didn’t you go to at least, like, one of the Garrison dances? I’m sure I saw you at at least one of them.”

Keith racked his brain. “Uh, I think I went to the first one ‘cause I thought it was mandatory. I didn’t really, um. Dance, though.” _I sat on the benches drinking soda. Kiiiinda like what we’re doing now._

“Well, Lance can teach you how to,” Hunk said with a wink. “He’s gone to every single one.” The yellow paladin gave his friends a not-so-gentle shove towards the middle of the floor. “Have fun!”

Lance whirled around and shouted, “Hunk! I swear, I’m gonna get you back for this!”

 _That bad, huh?_ Keith slumped a little bit, but tried not to show it. “Sorry. You don’t need to if you don’t wanna, I can go back,” he murmured to Lance. He started to turn, wondering how he’d spend the next two hours. A hand grabbed his shoulder and Keith flinched from shock.

“W-wait, Keith, I didn’t,” Lance gulped, looking nervous. “I. Um. I don’t mind dancing, like, with you. Yeah.” His eyes darted around, a finger tugging at his collar. After what felt like the longest pause while Keith was still trying to figure out what Lance was saying, the other boy extended his hand.

“Oh,” Keith breathed. “Oh, okay. Uh, let me know if I’m doing this right.” They dropped off their drinks to the side. He took Lance’s hand, hoping his wasn’t too sweaty or gross. His brain was short circuiting for no reason at all. _Maybe it’s this whole dancing thing, yeah, that’s probably it. I’ve never danced with anyone before, but Lance knows that, but still. I hope I don’t step all over his feet or something._ Keith followed him to the center of the room, where a red light shone down from the ceiling. It bathed the room in a warm, hazy glow. There was something in the air as well — _Stars? Glitter?_ — that made the room twinkle. The background music was slow and muffled.

 _This is probably what Allura meant by “the Saindorians know how to throw a party.” They had barely a few hours to set this all up._ Lance stopped abruptly, causing Keith to bump into him.

“Shit, sorry,” Lance said hurriedly. “So, this is your first time, right?” Moments after, he flushed. “Dancing. I mean.”

 _Huh?_ “Yeah.” He stood awkwardly, not sure what to do with his hands.

“So,” Lance still looked embarrassed as he ruffled his hair. “Just, uh, copy what I do, okay?”

 _Sounds fair enough._ Keith waited for Lance to put a hand on his shoulder and the other lightly on his waist before copying the movements. As soon as Keith adjusted his fingers, Lance began to step in time to the beat. _He’s moving way too quickly — wait, I can’t_ tell _him that, jeez._ The red paladin struggled to keep up, mirroring Lance’s movements to the best of his ability by staring at his feet.

Lance couldn’t keep his eyes on Keith either. _He seems really nervous. I wonder why? I hope I didn’t make him feel obligated to dance, or whatever. I think I made it pretty clear, but what if he didn’t see it that way?_ Trying to focus on getting the moves right, Keith stumbled over Lance’s shoes and nearly fell into him several times. Surprisingly, Lance didn’t complain — he didn’t speak at all. _Maybe he’s still thinking about before. Maybe he thinks I’m weird. Maybe you’re overthinking this, Keith!_

“Hey, uh,” Keith huffed, removing his hand from Lance’s shoulder to wipe his forehead. “You wanna take a break?” _Dancing never looked this hard when other people are doing it._

“Oh. Sure,” Lance said, finally looking at Keith. “Should — I mean, do you want me to go get our drinks?” He pointed at the table where they had left the drinks earlier.

“Yeah, thanks,” Keith replied, walking out of the spotlight. He sat down at the nearest seat and leaned back, relaxing. Lance appeared moments later with the plastic cups in his hands. _Is he blushing or am I imagining things? Probably just the lighting._

“H-here.” Lance stammered, sitting down next to Keith. Their shoulders barely touched but he seemed on edge.

Keith took a sip from the cup. It tasted a _lot_ sweeter than he remembered. “Did you put something in here?” he asked, tilting his head.

“What? No!” The blue paladin looked alarmed. “I mean, I did refill our cups at the table, but I’m like, 99% sure it was the same drink. Like, it looks the same, right?” Lance took a tentative drink, licking his lips. “Seems the same to me.”

“You sure?” After a couple of sips, Keith confirmed, “It’s definitely sweeter than usual. I think.” His head felt a little dizzy, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the drink or from the dancing. “Here. Try it.”

Lance took the cup from him, staring into the pink drink.

“Well?”

“I’m getting to it, I’m getting to it.” He took a large gulp, sloshing the liquid around. “Oh. You’re right, it _is_ sweeter. Wonder what they put it in?”

“Dunno. We can ask someone later. Wanna get back to the floor?” Keith pointed to the spotlight, extending a hand to Lance. The music had changed during their break from the slow and melodic tune to something more fast-paced. “Song’s changed.” The change was accompanied by cheers from the Saindorians, who began to move into larger groups of five or six. Some pairs still lingered, their dances becoming faster and more complex.

Lance still looked embarrassed, but took it. He still looked stiff as hell, which made no sense because, _dammit, I’m supposed to be the one who’s unfamiliar with this stuff. Lance has been to countless dances, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. So what’s he so embarrassed for?_

“Loosen up, c’mon.” Keith murmured.

“What?”

“I said, loosen up!”

“I’m fine!” Lance insisted.

Keith rolled his eyes, but let a small smile cross his face when Lance took his arm and strode ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ☞☞ tumblr is [karkatvantsas](http://keithkogane.co.vu/)


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